Dania: Her Album Listless – Intimate Experimental Pop Inspired by Medical Night Shifts
Besides crafting evocative digital compositions, the Iraqi-born, Spain-based artist Dania also serves overnight duties as an critical care doctor. Those late-night hours are the influence for her latest album Listless: all 7 tracks were composed and produced after midnight, while the artwork features the spindly flower of the Trichosanthes cucumerina, a plant that flowers exclusively at night. But, there is little trace of the turmoil of her late-night schedule here: instead, the album exudes a quiet calm that is sometimes euphoric, occasionally eerie.
Meeting somewhere amid trip-hop, ethereal rock and atmospheric, with a touch of pop, the textured songs slink along dreamily, propelled by waves of synthesizers and, for the first time, drums. An innovative feature to Dania’s usual arrangement, they add a gentle slow-paced kick to a number of the songs. Its meandering, hazy rhythm in Personal Assistant recalls the late-90s groups Scala and another, whereas Car Crash Premonition is the nearest the album get to intense. Written after an unnerving taxi journey to her workspace one night, it is simultaneously brooding and dizzying, fit for a movie scene.
Additional songs, including I Know That and Write My Name, are more reminiscent of Dania’s past output: minimalist and amorphous. The closing track, A Hunger, possesses a underwater quality, with gurgling and pinging sounds that resemble hospital equipment, interwoven with altered voicemail-like vocals.
Dania’s soft, murmuring vocal is featured through almost the entirety of the album. The words are hardly discernible as her voice are floating, repeated, stacked, sometimes almost absent at all. Having been raised in a household where singing was discouraged, she’s said it’s an activity she has always felt personal. Yet it’s also an brilliant decision, enhancing the dream-like haze on the beautiful, intimate record.
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