🔗 Share this article The Artist Dania: Her Album Listless – Intimate Experimental Pop Inspired by Hospital Late-Night Work Besides crafting atmospheric electronic compositions, this Baghdad-born, Barcelona-based musician Dania also serves overnight duties as an emergency physician. Those nocturnal shifts are the influence behind her latest album Listless: all 7 tracks were composed and produced in the early hours, and the cover showcases the slender flower of the Trichosanthes cucumerina, a plant that only blooms at night. But, there is little trace of the chaos of her overnight schedule here: rather, the album exudes a quiet peacefulness that is at times euphoric, occasionally uncanny. See image in full size Dania: Listless Converging somewhere between trip-hop, shoegaze and ambient, with a touch of pop, the textured songs slink along dreamily, driven by waves of synths and, for the first time, percussion. An innovative feature to the artist's usual setup, they lend a gentle slow-paced kick to several of the songs. The shuffling, murky beat in the track Personal Assistant recalls the 1990s-era groups Scala and Seefeel, while the song Car Crash Premonition is the closest things come to urgent. Written following an disturbing taxi journey to her studio one night, it is both brooding and dizzying, fit for a film montage. Other tracks, such as one titled I Know That and another called Write My Name, are more reminiscent of the artist's past output: stripped back and formless. The closing track, named A Hunger, has a underwater feel, with gurgling and beeping sounds that resemble hospital monitors, interwoven with distorted answerphone-style vocals. The artist's gentle, whispering vocal is present through nearly the whole of the record. The lyrics are hardly discernible as her voice are suspended, repeated, stacked, sometimes almost absent at all. Having been raised in a home where singing was discouraged, she has stated that it is an activity she has always felt private about. Yet it’s also an brilliant choice, enhancing the dream-like atmosphere on this beautiful, intimate album. New Releases Currently Bitchin Bajas draw 4 tracks across nearly 40 minutes on Inland See. Throughout those lengthy compositions (including an epic 18-minute-long closer), the Chicago trio present a further exemplary work in lush, wandering simplicity, with steady loops and effervescent jazz touches. For the last decade, Another Project (the imprint of Bristol producer Batu) has been a cornerstone for low-end focused experimental electronic beats. Their release TD10 celebrates that anniversary with twenty-three weighty, left-of-centre club cuts for all times of the night, including contributions from renowned producers like one name, another, Pearson Sound and Batu personally. Motivated partly by her own experiences of agoraphobia and fear of enclosed spaces, Fobia (by Other People), the recent album by from Argentina musician Aylu, is appropriately intimate, at moments stiflingly so. Close-contact recordings of labored inhales, gulps and vocalizations build out into intriguing but frequently lovely creations.