Besides crafting evocative digital compositions, the Baghdad-born, Barcelona-based artist Dania also serves night shifts as an critical care physician. Those nocturnal hours are the influence behind her latest album Listless: each of the seven tracks were composed and recorded in the early hours, and the artwork showcases the slender blossom of the Japanese snake gourd, a plant that only blooms at night. However, there is little trace of the chaos of her late-night schedule here: rather, the record embodies a quiet peacefulness that is sometimes blissful, sometimes eerie.
Converging somewhere between downtempo, ethereal rock and atmospheric, with a touch of pop, the textured songs glide hypnotically, driven by washes of synthesizers and, as a new element, drums. A new addition to the artist's typical setup, these drums add a soft downtempo kick to several of the tracks. Its meandering, hazy beat in the track Personal Assistant recalls the late-90s bands Scala and Seefeel, whereas Car Crash Premonition is the nearest things get to urgent. Written after an disturbing cab ride to her studio late one evening, it is simultaneously contemplative and dizzying, fit for a film montage.
Other songs, such as one titled I Know That and Write My Name, are closer in style of Dania’s past output: stripped back and formless. The final song, named A Hunger, has a underwater feel, with bubbling and beeping electronics that resemble hospital monitors, interwoven with altered voicemail-like vocals.
Dania’s gentle, murmuring vocal is featured across nearly the whole of the album. The words are hardly discernible as her vocals are floating, looped, stacked, sometimes barely there entirely. Having been raised in a household where singing was frowned upon, she has stated that it is an activity she’s consistently considered personal. But this is additionally an brilliant decision, augmenting the dream-like haze on this beautiful, personal record.
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One Group stretch 4 tracks out to nearly 40 minutes on their album Inland See. Across these extended compositions (featuring an epic 18-minute closer), the Chicago trio present a further exemplary work in lush, wandering minimalism, with steady repetitions and bubbly jazz touches. For the last decade, Another Project (the imprint of Bristol producer Batu) has served as a cornerstone for low-end focused innovative electronic beats. TD10 marks that anniversary with twenty-three weighty, unconventional dancefloor cuts for any hour of the night, with contributions from renowned producers like one name, another, a third and the founder himself. Motivated in part by her own experiences of agoraphobia and claustrophobia, the album Fobia (Other People), the recent album by from Argentina musician Aylu, is suitably personal, at moments overwhelmingly thus. Close-contact captures of strained breaths, swallows and vocalizations expand into curious but frequently beautiful compositions.
