I’m Lara Kroeker, a violinist, vocalist and composer. I make music as Mel·lif·lu·ous.
I begin with violin and voice, then follow what happens when a sound is looped, stretched or placed beside something unexpected. Field recordings, electronics and fragments of poetry find their way in. The music moves between acoustic and electronic, instinct and experiment.
A classical beginning. An open-ended practice.
I grew up with a violin in my hands. Years of classical practice gave me a foundation; learning to make music on my own terms gave me somewhere to go. I’m still learning, often through late nights, tangled cables and trying one more thing.
Alongside music, I’ve spent more than twenty years working in design and creative direction. I bring that same interest in structure, image and interaction into the way I compose and perform.
Following the work into unfamiliar places.
In Iceland, I recorded in the freezer of an old fish factory. In Japan, I carried letters and remembered voices into a studio beside the rice fields. Those residencies became albums, collaborations and a different way of listening.
Back in Vancouver, the work took physical form: bottles that release voices, boxes that hold sound, compositions shaped by touch. Through the MakerLabs Tools for Change residency I began exploring new ways to build the objects around the music.
I’m interested in the whole process: the beginnings, the uncertainty, the people met along the way. A finished song holds some of that. The stories hold the rest.
