The Artist Dania: Her Album Listless – Personal Underground Music Shaped by Medical Night Shifts
Besides producing atmospheric digital compositions, this Baghdad-born, Barcelona-based musician Dania also serves overnight duties as an emergency physician. These nocturnal hours are the influence for her latest album Listless: all seven songs were written and produced after midnight, while the artwork features the spindly flower of the Japanese snake gourd, a plant that flowers exclusively at night. But, you won't find much of the chaos of her late-night routine here: rather, the record exudes a serene peacefulness that is sometimes euphoric, occasionally uncanny.
Converging somewhere between trip-hop, ethereal rock and atmospheric, with a touch of catchy melodies, the textured tracks glide hypnotically, driven by waves of synths and, for the first time, drums. An innovative feature to Dania’s usual setup, they add a soft downtempo rhythm to a number of the songs. Its meandering, hazy beat in Personal Assistant recalls the late-90s bands one group and Seefeel, whereas Car Crash Premonition is the nearest the album come to urgent. Composed following an unnerving cab ride to her workspace one night, it is simultaneously brooding and woozy, ideal for a film montage.
Other songs, including I Know That and Write My Name, are more reminiscent of Dania’s past work: stripped back and formless. The closing track, A Hunger, has a subaquatic feel, with bubbling and pinging sounds that resemble hospital monitors, interwoven with distorted voicemail-like singing.
Dania’s soft, murmuring voice is present across almost the entirety of the record. The lyrics are almost imperceptible as her vocals are suspended, looped, layered, at points almost absent at all. Having been raised in a household where vocal expression was frowned upon, she’s said it’s an activity she’s always felt personal. But it’s additionally an inspired choice, enhancing the surreal haze on this beautiful, personal album.
New Releases Currently
One Group stretch four songs out to almost 40 minutes on Inland See. Across these lengthy pieces (including an epic 18-minute-long closer), the Windy City trio present a further masterclass in lush, meandering minimalism, with chugging repetitions and bubbly improvisational touches. For the last decade, Another Project (the label of UK-based producer one individual) has served as a foundation for bass-heavy innovative dance music. Their release TD10 celebrates that anniversary with 23 chunky, unconventional club tracks for all times of the evening, with contributions from renowned artists such as re:ni, Skee Mask, a third and Batu personally. Inspired partly by her own encounters of fear of open spaces and claustrophobia, Fobia (by Other People), the recent work by from Argentina sound artist Aylu, is appropriately personal, at moments stiflingly so. Close-contact captures of labored breaths, swallows and vocalizations build out into intriguing but frequently beautiful compositions.
