LLORA Is Cancer Free and Has Their First Gig at LadyLove Lounge & Sound

In Dallas, nobody can hear you scream. At least not when it’s late night after a screening of Alien at the Texas Theatre, and you’re behind the theater’s screen, where staff and touring bands have turned the small backstage space into a makeshift cyberpunk club for the evening. It’s loud and dark, save for flashing strobe lights and their reflection on the leather and sunglasses that adorn the room’s audience. It truly feels like you’ve stepped inside the movie you just watched.

The music is a hypnotic synth pattern that latches onto you like a leech, if leeches forced you to dance to the drum beat that followed. The song is called “Bad Behavior,” part of a tight 30-minute set from local dark wave artist LLORA, who opened January's show with touring bands Soft Vein and MVTANT.
On-stage, Llora Klein stands alone, both literally and figuratively. LLORA is their solo dark wave project, presented with a sort of breakneck energy that’s rarely found in the too-cool margins of goth clubs. Whips of curled hair give way to writhing limbs in every direction, all behind an unbelievably tight vocal that’s sung over the recorded tracks.

In the back of the room is a man who drove up to see LLORA from San Antonio, and says he’d do it again, no matter where he was playing. In the front, a young goth couple each sing along with the words of every LLORA song, puzzlingly, even those that are nowhere to be found on streaming. In the middle is a writer who bought a ticket to see Alien on the big screen and stayed for an immersive night of cyberpunk madness. All of them will buy tickets to see LLORA again, obsessively stream the eponymous debut album and get the feeling that stories like theirs litter every room LLORA plays in.
Last spring, a whole new wave of those memories was ready to be formed on the road, as LLORA prepared to embark on a short run of East and West Coast dates before taking off for a European tour with Patriarchy and a Mexico tour with Austin-based Night Ritualz.

The tour didn’t arrive without difficulty. In November 2024, LLORA was diagnosed with Stage 1 testicular cancer. LLORA went through surgery to have their right testicle removed, along with their spermatic cords and various nerve endings, in an effort to prevent any further spread.

No cancer is good cancer, but there was optimism to be found in testicular cancer being a highly treatable form of the disease, and even one that could be technically cured. The surgeries were a battle, but for the most part, LLORA’s life could go on. Live performances and DJ sets continued in the months leading up to the international tour, until things got worse. LLORA found out that the cancer had spread to their lymph nodes and was growing rapidly, upgrading it to Stage 2.

After honoring dates in New York, LLORA was forced to cancel the European and Mexico shows to rush back to Dallas and begin chemotherapy. The news was announced via Instagram on May 3. A few weeks later, a GoFundMe was set up, raising more than $7,000. On May 31, a benefit show was held at Rubber Gloves in Denton, with 13 live artists and DJs, including an LLORA DJ set.

Beginning June 2, LLORA began BEP chemotherapy, an aggressive form of treatment for testicular cancer. If the chemo didn’t shrink the growing mass, the possibility of a surgery called a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection had to be considered, which would attempt to remove the unnatural masses manually.

But after multiple rounds of treatment, LLORA got the good news last week.

“I am now officially in remission,” LLORA says over the phone. “I had my first clean scan a week ago. The goal of the chemo that I did was to shrink the mass in my lymph nodes, which had grown really fast and was viewable in a scan. The results of my last one after chemo were that the mass had shrunken dramatically down to the size where it’s almost completely gone.”

It’s amazing news, especially after the outpouring of support from the Dallas music scene.

“As long as I keep my clean scans going for the next five years, we can say it’s cured,” LLORA says.

Though the chemo treatment will cease, LLORA is still grappling with its side effects.

“I have really crazy chemo brain,” LLORA says. “Like inane brain fog, and it’s hard to form sentences. Sometimes I have neuropathy in my hands. I have really insane tinnitus now. I’ve lost some of my hearing because it destroys the cochlear cells in my ears. I poisoned myself for three months, willingly. That’s literally what chemotherapy is.”

In addition, LLORA also quit smoking and drinking cold turkey, prioritizing healthier living and doing what they can to take a bit of control over their body’s destiny.

“Obviously, I’m really happy about it,” LLORA says. “But in the back of my head, still, it’s just weird when your own body is like actively trying to kill you. You kind of don’t trust your body to an extent.”

LLORA is celebrating the good news with a comeback DJ set at LadyLove Lounge on Wednesday, Aug. 13, spinning entirely on vinyl. It's all house and disco with DJ Sober and DJ Al G. It's also their “first gig in a hot minute.”

As for the new music, that will come too, but in due time.

“My naive thought is that I would go into chemo with all this time away from everything and I’d come out with some inspired album,” LLORA says. “I was lucky to move my legs and get out of bed during that.”

Unlike for some artists, inspiration doesn’t come in the moment, but rather as a reflection of a period of time after it’s over.

“I’ve always been able to write about things that are hard after the fact,” LLORA says. “I don’t deal with things by making music, I’ve never been able to do that.”

It’s a joy to hear that LLORA is returning to music at all, let alone getting back to gigs so soon after their health battles. If new music comes from such a dark period, we’ll be listening. If not, we don’t mind another repeat of “Clock” or “Syncophant.”

More details on Moodlight Rendezvous can be found below.