ILA press kit: bio, photos and contacts

PRESS

Short bio

ILA is a Belgian band built around singer and guitarist Ilayda Cicek, with Cas Kinnaer on drums, Sam Smeets on bass and Mattias Stynen on guitar. The band broke through in 2022 after winning Studio Brussel’s De Nieuwe Lichting with “Leave Me Dry”, which spent three weeks at number one in De Afrekening. The mini-album Felt followed that year, before debut album Ayna arrived through PIAS in 2024.

Bio

ILA is a Belgian band built around singer and guitarist Ilayda Cicek, with Cas Kinnaer on drums, Sam Smeets on bass and Mattias Stynen on guitar. The band broke through in 2022 after winning Studio Brussel’s De Nieuwe Lichting with “Leave Me Dry”, which spent three weeks at number one in De Afrekening. The mini-album Felt followed that year, before debut album Ayna arrived through PIAS in 2024.

ILA’s music is driven by contrast: restraint against impact, melody against noise, control against collapse. With Motherland, the first album written by the full four-piece lineup, the band pushes that tension further. Recorded at Hackney Road Studios in London with producer Mikko Gordon, the record is broader, more layered and more direct than what came before.

At its core, ILA is a band that writes from lived experience without turning it into decoration. The songs deal with love, loss, distance, change and the pressure of having to rebuild. Nothing is softened for effect. The music stays physical, precise and recognisably theirs.

Photos by Taike De Wilde

MOTHERLAND cover

ILA-MOTHERLAND-VINYL-COVER.jpg (3684 x 3684, 3.9 MB)

Contact

BOOKING AGENT
Robin Tulkens (Live Nation)
[email protected]

MANAGEMENT & PRESS
Simon Lamont (HARDT)
[email protected]

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LEAVE ME DRY
ALL AGAIN
MAKE IT EASY
BEN ANLAMAM
THE SUN
LIVE TO LOVE
NUDE
TWENTY-TWO