The Artist Dania: Listless – Personal Underground Pop Shaped by Hospital Late-Night Work
Besides crafting atmospheric electronic compositions, this Iraqi-born, Spain-based artist Dania furthermore serves night shifts as an critical care physician. Those late-night hours are the influence for her new album Listless: each of the seven tracks were composed and recorded after midnight, while the artwork showcases the spindly blossom of the Japanese snake gourd, a plant that flowers exclusively at night. But, you won't find much of the turmoil of her overnight routine here: instead, the album embodies a serene peacefulness that is sometimes blissful, sometimes eerie.
Meeting at a point amid trip-hop, shoegaze and ambient, and a hint of catchy melodies, the textured songs glide dreamily, propelled by waves of synthesizers and, for the first time, drums. An innovative feature to the artist's usual setup, they add a soft slow-paced rhythm to a number of the tracks. The shuffling, hazy beat in the track Personal Assistant recalls the 1990s-era groups one group and Seefeel, whereas the song Car Crash Premonition is the nearest the album get to intense. Written after an unnerving cab ride to her studio one night, it is simultaneously contemplative and woozy, ideal for a movie scene.
Other tracks, including I Know That and Write My Name, are more reminiscent of Dania’s previous work: minimalist and formless. The closing track, named A Hunger, has a subaquatic feel, with gurgling and beeping sounds that resemble hospital monitors, blended with altered answerphone-style singing.
The artist's soft, whispering vocal is featured across nearly the whole of the record. The words are hardly discernible as her vocals are suspended, looped, layered, sometimes almost absent entirely. Growing up in a household where singing was frowned upon, she has stated that it is an activity she has always felt private about. But it’s also an inspired decision, augmenting the surreal atmosphere on this gorgeous, intimate album.
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