LUCRECIA DALT - Commotus

The basic elements of Lucrecia Dalt's new album are already clear from the excellent cover art: the wind and dust looming over an isolated country house serve as the most convincing calling card for an album that settles into ambient and electronics with a remarkable degree of poetry.

Dalt doesn't exploit the empty spaces of contemporary music; instead, she favours a more human tone for her interweaving of electronic textures and human eccentricities: it's no coincidence that Luke Sutherland and Julia Holter lend their contribution to the complex yet unobtrusive fabric of "Commotus".

It's evident, in fact, that there's no desire to surprise or enchant on first approach: some sonic choices are provocations that defy the rules of soundscape, while disruptive elements like moog and other analog synths turn the album's central body into an out-of-focus snapshot. "Multitud", "Jet" and "Esplendor" sound like a cross between Stereolab and Portishead, though lacking the former's carefree lightness and the latter's fullness.

Never settling into a definitive style and sliding through disorienting dub treatments, Lucrecia Dalt's album retains an intoxicating quality throughout all its chapters, even plunging into the gothic-blues of early Nick Cave on the shadowy "Turmoil", which only for a moment flirts with melodic seduction, elsewhere barely perceptible.

Always attentive to the connective tissue of her sonic constructions, on the intense "Conversa" the artist pairs dark rhythms with vintage keyboards and a strange sound effect that seems to send the Cure and Joy Division back in time to take on the German cosmic couriers. In truth, the opening notes of "Saltación", though rich in dissonant harmonics and vibrant textures, seem to promise a less tortuous and adventurous journey, but one need only run into the minimalism of "Mohán" to doubt the predictability of "Commotus": the crumbled, lopsided bass avoids progressions, entrusting itself instead to inserts of sounds, noises and voices to achieve an unsettling hypnosis.

Then, when the notes of Julia Holter's harmonium take hold of "Silencio", another window opens onto the impossible crossing of open sonic spaces and indecisive rhythms, a peculiarity that makes Lucrecia Dalt's new album rather original.

A few missteps ruffle the pages of "Commotus": in the attempt to harmonize shadows and light, dust and wind, fog and calm, the artist ventures into a slightly mannered exercise in style that first disrupts the linearity of "Do I Dare Disturb Your Dreams" and "Waste Of Shame", before taking hold of the lengthy "Batholith", which seems to pulverize in an instant all the boldest ideas, settling instead into a calmer ambient oasis.

Even so, the many ideas stirring through the album's best pages form a solid and promising body of work that underscores the artist's creativity. A listen here will prove quite interesting even for the less curious: the feeling that Lucrecia Dalt is still far from her peak is, in fact, more stimulating than a chorus of praise.

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16/07/2013