LLUM's revolution of joy

Based in the capital of Catalonia, she quickly rose through the city’s progressive ranks for emerging music, supporting the likes of Mainline Magic Orchestra and performing at Primavera. Growing up just outside of Barcelona, she describes herself as “the Mediterranean girl vibe.” While her family weren’t particularly musical, her dad had a record collection which she pulled from, citing Kraftwerk, Madonna and Chemical Brothers as early inspirations. “I didn’t take piano lessons or music lessons when I was a kid because my family couldn't afford that,” she says. “I remember that I beatboxed a lot because I was really obsessive with rhythms and I was singing a lot.”

At the age of nine she bought her first album, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, which still informs her creativity today. “My lock screen wallpaper is Lady Gaga,” she smiles. “I've been really connected with music but from a really self-taught way.”

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When she was eighteen, she began a four-year college course in musical theatre. During her first year of studies she had the opportunity to take part in a TV singing competition called Eufòria. “I was iconic,” she laughs. “Not that iconic, but it was good. It was a time where I needed some validation from people of the industry. I was eighteen-years-old and it taught me a lot about the industry, television, and I had the opportunity to sing in big venues. But I always think that I would have ended where I am right now, and that is making my own music and writing my own songs.”

She released her first single, “Liquid Latex” in 2023, followed by her debut EP No Light via local label Vida Records, born out of the festival of the same name. Her second EP Without Darkness followed a year later. Mixing hyperpop bpm with pulsing electronics and soaring vocals, Aymerich’s approach to songwriting is progressive and explorative.

Her live shows are also a space in which she can express her identity and continue to build the aesthetic world around her music. As a trans woman, she wants to create concerts that connect her community. “I think that one of the things that I've really accomplished these past few years living in Barcelona and mixing myself with the scene - it's really finding people and finding spaces where I can find myself and also looking for new expressions of people that are doing their thing in Barcelona,” she says.

Over the course of her short career she’s already performed on large stages around Barcelona including the likes of Razmatazz and the city’s Johan Cruyff stadium. But for Aymerich her priorities lie in building nights where she’s safely surrounded by her peers, where her identity is embraced rather than displayed as a token. “For me, it's more of the space that we create and the night that we can have more than doing my show in a big venue that is in the center of Barcelona,” she says. “I prefer doing it in the surroundings and with the people that I really love. I know that when this happens, queer people and people from the city are probably going to have more fun there and they want to be there. It's creating community, it's building something more impactful in the city and in a show. I really enjoy concerts where when you go out of the venue and you're like, ‘Wow.’ That is the energy that I really want to evoke in the people that come to my shows.”

It’s for this reason that Aymerich prefers to communicate her gender-identity through her art, rather than it being front and centre in her music. “In Barcelona and in Catalonia, a lot of media is already putting queer people in a box like if it was a genre not an identity, and it isn't. I think that my expression already talks about my gender identity, and I don't like to only use the words to express that,” she says. “I'm living my transition. Sometimes it is painful in a lot of ways, but I really like looking at it in a joyful way and I try to find myself making joyful music because it's the music that I want to hear.”

As well as her live shows, Aymerich also performs as a DJ around the city. She began playing records as a way to give fans an insight into her inspirations, but it quickly evolved into an act of representation, to counter the male dominated DJ scene. “In Barcelona and on the club scene and DJ scene, you see a lot of the lineups really powered by men,” she says. “Mainline Magic Orchestra - they also have the Mainline Collective - they really push queer artists, and that's nice.”

Every year Catalan Arts partners with Eurosonic Nooderslag, Europe’s leading festival and conference for emerging artists, sending acts from the region to showcase in Groningen, a small city in the Northern Netherlands. Mainline Magic Orchestra were chosen three years ago, and next year Aymerich will be following suit. The festival platforms artists for further festival bookings via their European Talent Exchange programme with opportunity to lock in a summer of activity. “I think it is the goal and also to have fun. I'm trying not to be so pretentious,” she smiles. “I'm trying to bring the rawness that I think is the talent that I have - good singing with my band and having real fun, and showcasing new songs, maybe.”

While it’s unlikely the team behind the South London party will be scouting this January in Groningen, if Aymerich could play any festival in Europe, it would be Mighty Hoopla. “I have my booking dreams. I have it in an Instagram file,” she laughs.