by Paddy Kinsella

When it all becomes too much – my thoughts racing at a speed beyond my comprehension, and my heart hardening, resembling a stone lodged inside determined to break free – I turn to a YouTube video to ‘rediscover my centre’. ‘Focus on the sounds you are hearing,’ an overly calm voice urges – the quality of synths blooming and withering in the background, and only at the point when it comes into consciousness does the awareness of the present bring my heart rate down to a snail’s pace.

Merging the worlds of ambient and folk, Alexia Avina’s obsession with the present is keener than most. Indeed, her last album, 2020’s All That I Can’t See, was written in seven days as ‘an attempt to honour the magic that comes with living in the moment.’ She insists on performing sat down – the cold friction of her body rubbing against the stage floor ensuring she feels part of her surroundings. A recent move to the Massachusetts countryside gives her a front row view of the changing of the seasons. I purchased her last album on tape and accompanying it was a seashell and debris, no doubt, pulled from the fertile Berkshire County earth.

Whether consciously or not, the otherworldly serenity of her music provides her listeners with the mindfulness she so eagerly seeks to achieve herself. The aforementioned advice of the YouTube video commentator could not be more apt; focus, and the calming synths will dance like rays on water, seducing you into a paradise of everlasting harmony. Avina’s voice holds notes like lovers reunited at an airport terminal. ‘Observe the colours,’ the aforementioned YouTube mindfulness teacher advises. And while Fit Into may start with just the picks of a guitar, it soon blossoms into a glowing vista: each and every hue beaming and radiant. An invaluable landing base, Fit Into encourages you to shut the engine off and give yourself over to the space around you.

Avina’s forthcoming album, Unearth, is released jointly by Lost Map and Top Shelf on October 9.

If you’d like to support us by subscribing to our zine, click here – it’s just £6 a year for four copies (inc p&p).