Silence can be the perfect way to sharpen the senses. To let the world in, to allow thoughts to come to the surface. F or Lisbons Ana Lua Caiano, those empty spaces – when shes walking or cant sleep – are when the ideas creep in.

Theyre her time to create. She takes them and moulds them into the songs that have poured out of her over the last two years. Initially for a couple of EPs (Se Danar S Depois / 2023 & Cheguei Tarde A Ontem / 2022) that made a name for her around Europe and the world, and now on her debut album for Glitterbeat.

Its electronic music. Utterly contemporary. Pulsing, glitchy, atmospheric and beat driven but with roots deep in the traditional Portuguese music her parents listened to when she was a child.

They had a lot of cassettes that theyd play, she recalls. I loved to mimic and Id imitate the singers. I took it in by osmosis, I suppose, and the elements are still there in what I do.

lockdown, Caiano has been relentlessly pushing the borders of her music. It is of course a process that already began when she first imitated traditional singers or took her first piano lesson. It is a process thats led her to the road shes on now, one where tradition and electronics walk side by side.

I think its quite experimental, she says, affirming that her music emphasizes the restless and evolutionary. I believe traditional music evolves with the world – nowadays you can make traditional music with a computer or talk about themes that werent relevant or didnt exist in the past.

Traditional music is always evolving. Travelling forward fast and sure, Ana Lua Caiano is definitely not stuck in a square.