Lucrecia Dalt - Syzygy

Syzygy, Lucrecia Dalt
Human Ear Music, Colombia
Rating: 75
by Glòria Guirao Soro

Syzygy defines a straight line configuration of three celestial bodies, such as the moon, the sun and the planets. The title Colombian musician Lucrecia Dalt has chosen for her third album gives us already a hint about the character of this record, released by Berlin label MEH last month. After having spent the last years in Barcelona, where she released her first two albums (Congost, 2010 and Commutus, 2012), Lucrecia has since moved to Berlin. Syzygy was recorded in her apartment in Barcelona and reflects an atmosphere of loneliness and intimacy, of experimentation and a wish for abstraction.

The word “syzygy” has also other meanings, most of them related to the concept of union, such as pairing, union of opposites, close union of non-related bodies. The songs in this album present a union of opposites by being suspended (in-gravity) and heavy and solid, at the same time. Singing in the lowest register, Lucrecia’s voice blends with the bass loops creating a dark and intimate soundscape. Syzygy is an album about loneliness, confusion and estrangement, a collection of very solemn musical episodes that wrap the listener with a mantle of gloom and gravity. Lucrecia Dalt mixes here a multiplicity of sounds, effects and variations coming off to an apparently very intuitive composition that is actually an overly calculated process of abstraction. Even the song titles are enigmatic and contribute to the gloomy and uncanny atmosphere the album suggests.

Syzygy, as a bedroom produced ensemble, reminds us of other recent works of this genre such as Don The Tiger’s Varadero, Laurel Halo’s Chance Of Rain or even Julia Holter’s and Molly Nilsson’s last albums, but less danceable. The opening song, “Glosolalia” displays a combination of sound progressions that is present all throughout the album: “Soliloquios” or “Murmur” are other examples of circular sound waves twirling around weightless. On the other side, there are also hypersubtle musical landscapes such as “Levedad” and “Volavérunt,” which are based on low frequency drones with Lucrecia’s whispering voice bringing the eerie and uncanny to a new level. This is a truly introspective album, we wouldn't expect something less from her. Headphones are highly encouraged.

MP3: Lucrecia Dalt - "Glosolalia"

As I told my Fonograma colleagues as soon as I came upon Lucrecia Dalt’s new song and lead track from her upcoming album, Syzygy, we’ve probably been ignoring her for far too long. The Colombian-born, Barcelona-based musician released her sophomore effort, Commotus, last year (and has had her name appear on the blog through collaborations with Los Macuanos and Los Amparito), an album with an apocalyptic cover whose eerie soundscapes and icy bass action earned her comparisons to Angelo Badalementi’s Twin Peaks soundtrack. If there’s one thing the emerging crop of Latin electronic troubadours have excelled at a lot better than Latin folk troubadours is at developing their own signature sonic environment. With her latest track, “Glosolalia,” she crafts yet another puzzling piece that focuses on mood rather than melody and this time feels like a perfect fit for the psychotic tension and uneasy anticipation of Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter. Just as I will be in a few months, Lucrecia Dalt is a civil engineer. And if there’s one thing about the discipline that seems to have overlapped with her music, it’s the understanding of your own environment’s unpredictability and constant evolution, how sometimes one can still be amazed despite years of study and experience. Grab the track on the Soundcloud player below. Syzygy is out on October 15 via Human Ear Music.