By Anna Zhila, Music and Art Critic

The Total Art of Tlya X An. You find an artist, every so often, who's doing something more than just making songs. They are building a world. Tlya X An is one of those people. Listening to her work, watching her, you feel like you’re stepping into a place where the sound, the image, the performance - it’s all breathing the same air. That old idea of a total work of art, but it feels completely of this moment.
My work as a curator is to look for this. A real vision. And in what she does, I see a kind of rebellion that feels not just potent, but necessary. This isn't just about another new musician from Bristol. This is about someone showing us what creativity in Britain can be.
Her backstory explains so much. You really can’t separate the art from her life. Her father, a British music producer, was known for his work bringing Palestinian and Israeli musicians together. Her mother was a singer. A childhood like that isn't just about listening to different kinds of music. It gets inside you. It teaches you that a genre is just a box someone else made. You don't have to live in it.
She was already making beats when she was ten.
But Bristol. Bristol was the flashpoint. Moving there at seventeen, she landed in a city with this deep, radical history in its music. The perfect storm, really. That city gave her the space she needed to figure out her own sound.
And you can see the path she’s carved since then. A clear line from being a collaborator, just part of the scene, to being the one in control. For a couple of years, she was just taking it all in, working with people like Dr Meaker and Fizzy Gillespie. Becoming a name.
The 2023 debut EP, TXN, felt like a flag being planted in the ground. The sound was this beautiful, chaotic clash. One minute, you're hearing the fractured, glittering edges of hyperpop. The next, the warmth of old R&B, but it’s all driven by this raw, trap energy. Once BBC Radio 1 and 6 Music got behind her, things changed.
For me, though, the real turning point was 2024. She started directing her own videos. For everything. Singles like "Camel's Back," "Ninja." And that’s when it became clear she was owning the entire frame, not just the soundtrack. Her live shows began to morph, too. They became these immersive, theatrical experiences.
Tlya X An's music isn’t background noise. It’s physical. The sounds are layered and sharp-edged, almost like something you could run your hand over. She carves these complex shapes out of glitches and samples and vocals.
And the videos aren’t just add-ons. They feel like part of the song’s DNA. The hazy visuals for "Stuck in Mind" - it does more than illustrate. It pulls you into a state of mind, a feeling of beautiful anxiety that stands entirely on its own.
This whole DIY thing she does is the entire point. I don’t think it’s about saving money. It isn’t some calculated brand. It feels more like a core belief. A refusal to let the idea get watered down.
You hear the word "empowerment" thrown around a lot. Here, you just see it. In an industry that still loves to package and produce its female artists, her taking complete creative control is a profound statement. She's simply not playing that game.
And the work isn't trying to be easy. There's a beautiful friction to it. It can be strange and jarring and lovely all at once, which is no small thing to pull off. That courage is what makes her feel so vital. She’s not following a playbook. She is writing her own.
When I look at Tlya X An work, I don’t just see an artist on the rise. I see a complete, self-contained artistic force. It just reminds you where the real art comes from. It isn't born in a conference room. It happens when someone is alone in a room, with a vision, piecing a world together bit by bit. That’s what’s happening here.

Image taken from a video on the @tlyaxan YouTube channel.