Barcelona-based Iraqi-born composer Dania Shihab (who actually grew up
in Tasmania) specialized in
ambient dream-pop for voice and solo electronics.
Her manifesto, the seven-song mini-album Voz (Geographic North, 2022),
is a set of abstract and contemplative post-Enya wordless songs:
the multi-part religious hymn I Lied,
the transcendent mantra Aleph,
the moribund interlude Fire Dash,
the astral "om" Whale Song,
the angelic psychedelic trip An Individual,
etc.
Nothing is groundbreaking, but the whole is pleasant enough.
The 55-minute piece of Downtime Salon (Superpang, 2022) was created for
a site-specific art installation in Germany. It opens harsh and neurotic and
then dives into a loop of echoes.
The voice enters only 15 minutes into the piece
with a prayer-like invocation that morphs into a droning cosmic
dissonance.
It is mixed with the sound of rain after minute 24.
A section of metallic percussion turns into a frenzied robotic carillon.
A church-like choir emerges from the dark and turns into a bright light
of multi-tracked female chanting.
The eight-song mini-album Foreign Body (Ecstatic, 2023) feels more
fragmented if varied.
Her voice surges against a choir effect over a bed of undulating drones in
Adult Third Culture Kid.
Foreign Body toys with field recordings and sinister noise.
I Don't Understand My Own Language engages neoclassical strings.
The brief Spectral boasts the most arresting vocal effects.
This set is generally predictable and facile.
The 22-minute piece of Arete (Longform Editions, 2023) begins with
glitchy crumbling electronic noise riding stately drones, then wavers into
a sort of
neoclassical adagio with increasingly tragic overtones, and finally the wordless
vocals return to caress and dispel the electronic anxiety.
Accioon y Destino (OOH-sounds, 2023) was a collaboration with
percussionist and keyboardist
Rupert Clervaux, consisting in five lengthy improvisations which alternate
between ugly dissonance
(the 22-minute I and the first half of the 23-minute V)
and angelic psychedelic chanting
(the ten-minute II and especially the 12-minute IV, the album's standout).
The six-song mini-album Enough For Me To Remain (2024), credited to Daniailyas, was a collaboration with Pakistani-born guitarist Ilyas Ahmed.
The combination yields something akin to new-age music. Only the
seven-minute The Pilgrim manages to create an atmosphere of mystery.
Keep Smoking Swamp (2025) was a collaboration with Rosso Polare (the Italian duo of Anna Vezzos and Cesare Lopopolo).
The 28-minute seven-song mini-album Listless (Somewhere Press, 2025)
marked a grotesque turn toward the dancefloor with beat-driven
downtempo
songs bordering on
trip-hop
(Personal Assistant, Heart Shaped Burn, Car Crash Premonition).
The dreamy wordless lullabies On a Grassy Knoll and
Write My Name
circle back to her beginnings, but amount to very little.
