How Alias Error found a home in Berlin

Alia Seror-O’Neill, a.k.a. Alias Error, moved to Berlin seven years ago, finding home as well as a new drive for her creative pursuits.

Crack Magazine has teamed up with VanMoof for I Know A Place – a four-part series exploring four European cities through the eyes of the people that inhabit them. We’re speaking to musicians and tastemakers to find out what about their city makes them feel free, and energises them to create.

It’s a brisk autumn morning when we meet Alia Seror-O’Neill on a tarmac runway in the South side of Berlin, a disused airport-turned leisure space that she says is one of the few places you can see the horizon in the city. It’s a unique spot that marries the industrialised aesthetic the German city is known for with the regenerative spirit of its people – on a warm spring or summer day, she paints a picture of cyclists, rollerskaters and even groups of people picnicking: “It can turn into a bit of a carnival here”.

Alia moved to Berlin to experience life abroad. What was supposed to be a year out turned into two, which turned into three and so on, and with it she connected with likeminded creatives, producers, DJs and promoters, who all fed into her own desire to create music. One such acquaintance, producer Lewie Day (a.k.a. Tornado Wallace), turned into a collaborator, when the pair met in a studio as she was recording some overdubs for a song. The duo released an album last year under the name a.s.o – which made it into Crack’s own Album Of The Year list for 2023 – crafting a sound that travels through cloudy trip-hop.

Now fully focused on creating her own sound, with new solo music coming imminently, Alia spends her time between radio show recordings – she has a residency on Refuge Worldwide, dedicated to downtempo and alternative pop – and gigs or rehearsals, unlocking her neighbourhood and its people on her VanMoof S5. Cycling is a new pursuit for Seror, but one that has allowed her to explore more of the city that she describes as “slow moving” and really “more of a big chaotic village”. It is this unhurried culture though, she says, that has afforded her the time and space to create at her own pace.