We’re living in fractured times. What can art really offer us? Lyra Pramuk’s powerful new album Hymnal might just offer a clue — not through escapism or easy answers, but by embracing contradiction and carving out sonic spaces where new ways of being can start to take root.
I visited Lyra at her studio in Berlin to talk about the making of what could be one of the most bold and affecting records of the year. Building on the foundation of her acclaimed 2020 debut Fountain, she’s taken things somewhere even more unflinching — a place of dissonance, grief, ritual, and surprising beauty. Hymnal isn’t here to soothe; it mirrors the complexity of the world around us, while still offering room to breathe and imagine something different.
What’s remarkable is how central collaboration is to this work. There’s Berlin’s Sonar Quartet, whose strings thread through the record with a kind of aching elegance. But perhaps most unexpected is her partnership with a slime mold — yes, a slime mold — whose movements across poetic maps helped shape the flow of her vocal improvisations. It’s as wild as it sounds, and just as moving.
Our conversation drifts through everything from the spiritual and physical labour of music-making to the poetic logic of electronic sound. Lyra shares thoughts on technology as an extension of our bodies (think spiders sensing the world through their webs), the limits of Cartesian mind-body dualism, and why electronic music can hold radical potential — not just as art, but as a way of reimagining how we live together. Where techno-capitalism demands hierarchy and separation, Hymnal offers something else: a kind of sacred entanglement between people, nature, and machines.
Listen to Lyra Pramuk’s music:
Listen to Hymnal (2025):
Spotify – Album Hymnal | Bandcamp – Hymnal
Follow Lyra Pramuk on Instagram:
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Thanks also to this episode’s sponsor, Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.
And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.