When I was a teenager, my life was a delicate balance of ecstasy and terror. I felt that I was capable of everything and nothing. “Swirl” is kind of like that. Elegant strings compete with, or reply to, sibilant chirps of noise. Proud, contemplative languor, punctuated by moments of fury and doubt.
Dasychira’s new album, xDream, due Halloween via Blueberry Records and UNSEELIE, promises to be an exploration of youth, repression, and self-discovery. I get it. But in “Swirl,” I hear something else, too. The New York-based “bug/alien/fairy-hybrid” is at the top of their game as a composer, marrying melodies and dynamic textures that are equally complicated and affective without losing the special signature of either. Malibu is a natural complement to Dasychira’s compositional voice; they both have a special talent for assembling divergent emotional and cultural points of reference in a way that shares in cacophony and simplicity, like the adolescent stream of consciousness. “It’s an ocean /In the palm of my hand.”
