The Artist Dania: Listless – Intimate Experimental Pop Shaped by Medical Night Shifts
Besides crafting evocative digital compositions, this Baghdad-born, Spain-based artist Dania also works overnight duties as an critical care doctor. These late-night shifts serve as the inspiration for her latest release Listless: all seven tracks were composed and recorded after midnight, while the artwork showcases the spindly blossom of the Japanese snake gourd, a species that only blooms at night. But, you won't find much of the turmoil of her late-night schedule in this music: rather, the album exudes a serene calm that is sometimes blissful, occasionally uncanny.
Meeting somewhere amid downtempo, ethereal rock and ambient, with a touch of catchy melodies, the layered tracks glide hypnotically, propelled by waves of synthesizers and, for the first time, drums. A new addition to Dania’s typical setup, these drums lend a soft slow-paced rhythm to several of the tracks. Its shuffling, hazy rhythm in the track Personal Assistant evokes the late-90s bands Scala and another, whereas the song Car Crash Premonition is the closest the album come to intense. Written following an unnerving cab ride to her workspace late one evening, it is simultaneously contemplative and dizzying, fit for a movie scene.
Other songs, such as I Know That and another called Write My Name, are closer in style of Dania’s past work: minimalist and amorphous. The closing track, A Hunger, possesses a subaquatic feel, with gurgling and pinging sounds that resemble medical equipment, blended with distorted answerphone-style singing.
The artist's soft, murmuring vocal is present across nearly the whole of the record. The lyrics are almost imperceptible as her voice are floating, repeated, layered, sometimes almost absent at all. Growing up in a household where vocal expression was discouraged, she has stated it’s something she’s always felt private about. But this is additionally an inspired decision, enhancing the dream-like atmosphere on this beautiful, personal album.
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