Dania: Her Album Listless – Personal Experimental Pop Inspired by Hospital Late-Night Work
In addition to crafting evocative electronic pieces, the Baghdad-born, Barcelona-based musician Dania also serves night shifts as an emergency physician. These nocturnal hours serve as the inspiration behind her new album Listless: each of the 7 songs were written and recorded in the early hours, and the cover features the slender blossom of the Trichosanthes cucumerina, a plant that flowers exclusively after dark. But, there is little trace of the chaos of her late-night routine here: rather, the record exudes a quiet calm that is at times euphoric, sometimes uncanny.
Converging at a point amid trip-hop, ethereal rock and atmospheric, and a hint of pop, the layered songs glide dreamily, propelled by waves of synthesizers and, for the first time, percussion. A new addition to the artist's usual arrangement, they add a gentle downtempo rhythm to several of the songs. The shuffling, murky rhythm in Personal Assistant evokes the 1990s-era groups one group and another, while the song Car Crash Premonition is the nearest things get to intense. Written following an unnerving taxi journey to her studio one night, it is both contemplative and dizzying, fit for a movie scene.
Other tracks, including I Know That and another called Write My Name, are closer in style of Dania’s previous output: stripped back and formless. The closing track, A Hunger, possesses a underwater quality, with bubbling and pinging sounds that resemble medical equipment, blended with altered answerphone-style singing.
The artist's gentle, murmuring voice is featured through almost the entirety of the record. The lyrics are hardly discernible as her vocals are floating, repeated, stacked, at points almost absent at all. Having been raised in a home where vocal expression was discouraged, she’s said it’s an activity she has consistently considered private about. Yet it’s additionally an brilliant choice, augmenting the surreal haze on the beautiful, personal record.
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