Livia Rita provides “a personal survival kit for planet earth” in new playlist

Welcome back to Selections, a series of artist-curated playlists from those in the know.

With her multi-disciplinary creations, Livia Rita conveys a vibrant, otherworldly vision filled with ethereal entities, sonic sorcery and tinged with a sense of the uncanny.

The London-based artist crafts avant-garde eco-pop rooted in queer utopia, explorations of otherness and a close relationship to the natural world, as their debut album Fuga Futura – released last October – showcases. And the live performance side forms an intrinsic part of Rita’s work, their shows offering an outer-dimensional experience and expression inhabited by a cast of mythological creatures and fauna.

The next opportunity to delve into the world of Livia Rita and the Avantgardeners Community – the collective she forms part of – is this coming weekend. At the Southbank Centre, she presents Dystopia Wetland, joined by a live band, dancers and the aforementioned creatures. Ahead of the shows, here she provides our latest Selections playlist.

“This playlist brings together my personal survival kit for planet earth,” Rita tells us over email. “I don’t feel 100% at home, I feel like I need to entangle with nature and fantasy to mutate into a creature with superpowers,” they add as further explanation. Featuring tracks from Marina Herlop, Fever Ray, Björk, Overmono and Julee Cruise, thematically Livia Rita says this playlist explores “dreams, emotions, desire, community & rhythm, brutal, vulnerable, fantasy horror”. Listen below.