about the record

Following a series of releases on labels such as Mana, Sun Ark, Orange Milk Records, and Abyss, Other People present Fobia by Argentinian musician and sound artist aylu, the project of Ailin Grad.

Inspired in part by Grad’s many collaborative projects over recent years, Fobia sees her collecting and rearranging music and sounds fostered within these contexts to form an intimate, spiritually charged album that turns personal struggle into collective resistance and resilience. What initially started as a way for Grad to process her own experiences with agoraphobia and claustrophobia, and to navigate feelings of shame and the perceived demand to keep these feelings hidden, gradually led her to recognize that mental health struggles are not isolated incidents, but part of broader systems of collective suffering and injustice.

“It took a long time for me to discover that my issues were part of a system that produces these kinds of symptoms, and that it takes a lot of courage to find a way around them. I have the feeling that more and more people suffer from these kinds of things in some way or another, and what was at first taught as something you should be silent about and keep private, I discovered that the more you talk about it and share it with people you trust, the more you realize that it’s part of something much bigger.”

This tension and constant pull between fear and joy, light and dark, is present throughout the album. From the strained breathing featured in the opening track “Yodo,” echoing the suffocating feeling of claustrophobia, to the lighter textures of “Obelisco Elysium” and “Prospero,” which offer a sense of relief, and onward to the almost cacophonous, immersive sounds of “El Sol Mal,” the record mirrors the complex and often contradictory emotions involved in navigating mental health challenges.

Fobia invites listeners to move through pain with honesty, finding strength in shared experience.