Mexican composer, producer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Oriana Gidi has built a career that moves fluidly between film, contemporary art and experimental music. Having studied music in California before specialising in film scoring in Paris, her work spans everything from HBO documentaries and gallery installations to independent solo releases.

Her second self-produced studio album, iloteca, continues that interdisciplinary approach. Blending pop, experimental composition and immersive sound design, the record is an ambitious yet intimate collection that reflects Gidi’s instinct for pairing inventive production with emotionally resonant songwriting.

Drawing on her background in film scoring, iloteca unfolds with the atmosphere and detail of a cinematic soundtrack while remaining rooted in personal storytelling.

For 1883 Magazine, Oriana Gidi has penned a track-by-track breakdown of each song on the record.

‘Frozen Spiderwebs’

This song was born on a London underground platform in the winter, where I saw a frozen spiderweb sitting in the corner. My mind immediately went to the web’s owner, and what she would do when she came back to find her home frozen. In the few minutes that I waited for the train, a melody came to me, and I recorded it into my voice memos. The story kept developing in my head with increasing absurdity and silliness, and I finished writing the lyrics over the next few days.

I remember I had to stop mid takes when I recorded vocals because I kept laughing at my own lyrics. The song sat unfinished for about a year before I finally finished producing it. I was lucky to have some dream collaborators too, like my mentor and friend Leo Heiblum on percussion, and Joe Dart from Vulfpeck on bass. It’s the first track on the album because it has a bit of everything that’s to come: theatricality, playfulness and storytelling. I think Frozen Spiderwebs feels as fun and free as it felt to make it. 

‘Madriguera’

I wrote this song as a means of self exploration at a time where I felt like I was limiting myself. I’d been thinking a lot about the ways we contort ourselves and follow a bunch of self-imposed rules to fit into the person we think we ought to be. It’s almost like a character we inhabit, and after we’ve played that part for a long time, it starts to feel a little too real to let go of, and we can’t imagine being anyone else. The burrow (madriguera) represents that sort of “comfort zone” that keeps you from exploring other versions of yourself. The song was meant to be an encouragement (to myself mainly) to step out of it and allow ourselves more room for change and growth, even when it’s scary. 

‘Blue Bin Boy’

Now back to a silly, fully made-up story about a boy made of recyclable trash. I wrote this song when I was living in Paris, a little bit after the month-long trash strike took place. Surely the PTSD from living amongst mountains of trash everywhere had something to do with me coming up with this character. What makes this song particularly special though, is that I wrote it on my darbouka (middle eastern drum), and I decided that it would stay that way: just percussion and voice.

To stay true to the concept, most of the percussion we recorded is trash. The conga-like element is a plastic bottle with a few lentils inside. There were paper bags, old kitchen utensils, and other random stuff that I wouldn’t even know what to call. 

‘Molde’

The title means mould, and the story is as follows: a cake is baked, it’s taken out of the oven, removed from the mould, and the mould misses and yearns for its cake forever. People have had wildly different interpretations of this song, some see an empty nest theme, some take it at face value as a playful story, some sense an underlying sexual connotation. That’s part of the fun though, it doesn’t matter what it meant for me when I wrote it, once it exists outside of me it becomes about whatever the listener wants it to be about.

In terms of production, this is one of the most minimalist songs on the album. I sampled my duduk (Armenian wind instrument) and made a pad out of it, which gave it a beautifully warm, slightly hypnotic tone. During the recording session, after a few takes, I told my drummer to think of himself as a

kitchen utensil rather than a drummer. And thankfully that clicked perfectly and he played a wonderful, interesting, chaotic take with an improvised feel that ended up being the one. 

‘Recado’

I was sitting alone at a beach in the north of France. I was about to move back home to Mexico City from Paris, and I felt the uncertainty of a new chapter of my life approaching. As I was staring at the ocean I had an idea: “what if I left a message for myself here; speak it into the ocean and let it swim away, hoping it will find me again someday, somewhere, when I need to hear it.” It felt like a really magical moment. I don’t remember what the actual message was so I’m trusting that it will indeed find me someday and I’ll just know. 

‘Gambler’

This song is about a guy who gambles his face away, and his subsequent struggles as a person without a face navigating stares on the street, eating food and making friends. A character driven song with a happy ending, as opposed to Frozen Spiderwebs. At first I just had the verse melody and chords, and I didn’t know what it was gonna be about. I tried out like 3 different lyrics and they got progressively more unhinged until I landed on faceless boy. 

‘For Better’

This is the sad song of the album. More nostalgic than sad, I think. I wrote it during and after a very meaningful trip where among other things, a little love story took place. I actually started writing it at Hyde park on a touristy, Big Ben themed notebook that I got cause I forgot my own notebook, as is mentioned in the song itself. The chorus says, “for better or for worse I feel it all”; it’s about acceptance and openness towards the whole range of human emotion and experience. Going through life feeling deeply and without reservations. That’s the core of the song, and something I try to live by. 

‘Verde’

Verde is a fully instrumental piece that I wrote for piano, harp, cello and flute. I’m a film composer and I think that seeps through the whole album, but this is definitely the most cinematic. When I hear it I see green, I see forest and I see fairies. This song feels like a living, breathing thing to me.

I chose to close the album with it because it asks you to slow down, listen attentively, and gives you a chance to process the experience of the whole album, with all its imagery, characters, textures, etc, and allows you to sit with it all for a moment.

Hopefully you walk away from listening to “iloteca” slightly more attuned to the world around you, more curious, more playful or at least confused enough to want to listen to the whole thing again.