The Artist Dania: Listless – Personal Experimental Pop Shaped by Medical Night Shifts
In addition to producing atmospheric digital compositions, this Baghdad-born, Spain-based musician Dania also works overnight duties as an emergency physician. These nocturnal hours are the influence behind her latest album Listless: all seven tracks were composed and recorded after midnight, while the artwork showcases the spindly flower of the Japanese snake gourd, a plant that only blooms after dark. But, there is little trace of the turmoil of her overnight routine here: instead, the album embodies a serene calm that is sometimes blissful, sometimes uncanny.
Meeting at a point amid trip-hop, shoegaze and atmospheric, and a hint of pop, the layered songs glide hypnotically, driven by washes of synthesizers and, for the first time, drums. A new addition to the artist's typical setup, these drums add a gentle downtempo rhythm to several of the songs. The shuffling, hazy beat in Personal Assistant evokes the 1990s-era groups one group and another, whereas the song Car Crash Premonition is the nearest the album come to urgent. Composed after an unnerving taxi journey to her workspace late one evening, it is both brooding and dizzying, fit for a movie scene.
Additional tracks, including I Know That and another called Write My Name, are more reminiscent of the artist's past work: minimalist and amorphous. The final song, named A Hunger, possesses a underwater feel, with gurgling and pinging sounds that sound like hospital monitors, interwoven with distorted voicemail-like singing.
Dania’s gentle, murmuring voice is featured through almost the entirety of the record. Its lyrics are hardly discernible as her vocals are floating, repeated, stacked, sometimes barely there at all. Growing up in a home where vocal expression was frowned upon, she’s said it’s an activity she has consistently considered personal. Yet this is additionally an inspired choice, enhancing the surreal atmosphere on this beautiful, intimate album.
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