I saw the image of this cover photo
on a Facebook post by David Sylvian,
and I thought first, who is Lucretia Dalt,
and then, why is David Sylvian giving
her a shout out in his socials? It took
only a few clicks to learn that David
does a guest vocal on one of her songs,
that he lended his production talents
to the album as a whole, and that Dalt
and Sylvian, despite their almost 20
year age difference, are now a couple.
The last thing didn’t matter to me as
much as the first two, concluding, as
one does, that if Sylvian is interested
in this music, one should check it out.
Both expatriates, she, a Columbian
who lived in Berlin until recently
relocating to New Mexico, and Sylvian,
a British pop music recluse who many
years ago came to live in the U.S,
and now resides in the dessert of
the southwest somewhere. Mysterious,
ain’t it? As is the most recent musical
output from Sylvian, and this record
by Lucretia Dalt, mysterious. Alternating
between Spanish and English, some-
times within the same song, Dalt
is crafting a kind of ethereal, spooky,
haunting electronic pop. It’s a lush
record, but the production is spacious,
open, so that every little weird sound,
every note, every whisper, every strange
piece of electronic percussion, every
spoken word, every instrument, has
a distinct and honored place in the mix.
You won’t
find yourself dancing to this record,
but swaying, maybe, in a trance-like
state, or just closing your eyes,
allowing her songs to transport you
to some crazy place. After a few listens
you’ll be able to hum along with
the melodies, even if you can’t sing
the Spanish (or the English for that
matter). I’m betting, though, like me,
you will be sufficiently intrigued
if not pleasantly weirded out, and
like me, you will return to this
album, A Danger to Ourselves,
over and over. One of my
favorite records of 2025.
Notes on the vinyl edition: A Danger to Ourselves, RVNG Intl., 2025, black vinyl.
FYI: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response for each artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic.
michael jarmer 