Dania: Listless review – intimate underground pop inspired by hospital night shifts

(Somewhere Press)
Reflecting her nocturnal work as an emergency doctor, the Baghdad-born musician’s latest blends trip-hop, shoegaze and ambient into sometimes eerie, sometimes blissful tracks

As well as making atmospheric electronic compositions, the Baghdad-born, Barcelona-based musician Dania also works night shifts as an emergency doctor. These nocturnal hours are the influence behind her new album Listless: all seven tracks were composed and recorded after midnight, while the artwork features the spindly flower of the Japanese snake gourd, a plant that only blooms after dark. But there is little trace of the chaos of her late-night schedule here: instead, the record embodies a quiet calm that is sometimes blissful, sometimes eerie.

Meeting somewhere between trip-hop, shoegaze and ambient, with a touch of pop, the textured tracks slink along dreamily, propelled by washes of synths and, for the first time, drums. A new addition to Dania’s usual setup, they lend a gentle downtempo kick to several of the songs. The shuffling, murky beat in Personal Assistant recalls the late-90s groups Scala and Seefeel, while Car Crash Premonition is the closest things get to urgent. Written after an unnerving taxi journey to her studio one night, it is both brooding and woozy, fit for a film montage.