Pyra Draculea is a Vancouver-based composer, artist, writer, and DJ.

As a composer she has a hand in avant garde and experimental works as well as orchestral pieces. She likes working with found sound and electronics, blending these with organic structures and traditional acoustic instruments sometimes used in non-traditional ways.  She’s recently started composing good old-fashioned WEAM – Western European Art Music. (Well, not so much old-fashioned as new-mangled…)

She also makes industrial/synth rock under the name maQLu, and has put out three EPs [Blood, Black, and Haze, and a CD blood.black.haze compiling all three] that have hit college radio charts across Canada since the summer of 2010. Fans have described her music as “a beautiful abomination” while reviewers have said maQLu’s music is “a breath of fresh air in the electro scene” [James Wright of Soundsphere Magazine] and “an orchestration of foreign, unsettling industrial rock” [Tom Harrison of The Province].

As maQLu she has remixed for other artists including Left Spine Down, iVardensphere, Virtual Terrorist, and Drowning Susan.

Some experimental/improvisational works have also come out under the maQLu banner, such as 2011′s The Maqlu Tarot, but in the future noise-based experimental and improvisational works will likely be branded as maQnin.

Draculea also works in the visual arts, painting and drawing since she was small and more recently turning to photography, illustration and comics. Much like her experimental and noise music, she is primarily interested in textures, symbols and metonymy, but she does venture into more illustrative work such as her webcomic Zamo the Destroyer (about a megalomanical iguana).

As a writer, Draculea has contributed to Vancouver’s Discorder Magazine off and on since 2001, writing both features and reviews. Since early 2012 she has also written reviews for Spill Magazine. On her own time she writes poetry and creepy little vignettes, some of which can be found on maqlu.com.

Pyra Draculea has also hosted the Vampire’s Ball on CiTR Radio (101.9 FM in Vancouver) since 2002, focussing on industrial, noise and experimental sounds.

She is currently working on a new maQLu album, a new experimental/improvisational series to be called Hexagrams, her first symphony, a book on college radio promotion for Canadian bands, and assorted smaller spoken word and noise bits.