Berlin-based composer, violist, and songwriter r Dina Maccabee steps into the foreground on LMNO, an eight-song album following years of collaboration with artists including Julia Holter, Feist, and Tune-Yards. Across the record, Maccabee explores the tension between seeking clarity and accepting uncertainty, with its title inspired by a playful pop-punk refrain that calls for expectations to be broken down into simpler terms.
A lovely album opener, “I Can’t See It’s Dark” weaves lush key twinkling, simmering strings, and caressing acoustics as Maccabee’s memorable lead presence emerges, ruminating on a loss of self-direction. “I can’t see it’s dark, my sense of direction comes apart,” she lets out. The illusion of soft surfaces, into a more hardened exterior, is poetically depicted, as is the “I am not afraid of the dark” ensuing perseverance. Her powerful performance and songwriting are quickly on full display here. Ensuing track “Punching at the Moon” is a brisker, catchier production, while also employing trickling acoustics and memorable strings amidst a memorable alt-folk ascent; the bridge past the two-minute mark, with layered backing harmonies moving to a title-bearing refrain, is especially memorable.
Also standing out is “You Listening,” striking in its introspective “this moment we’re passing through” contemplations amidst heart-tugging strings and solemn piano. “Just close your eyes and let it go,” Maccabee lets out with cathartic qualities, showing a stirring ability to succeed in the balladry realm, just as she does in the more fast-paced charm of “Punching at the Moon” or the lovely “A Cat Dream,” channeling a sort of sophisti-pop soundscape as jazzy rhythms, lounge-set piano, and rich harmonic adornments drive to a lovely “if I could only dream…” midpoint pondering. Fondly reminiscent of Japanese Breakfast in aesthetic, LMNO is an excellent album from Dina Maccabee.
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“I Can’t See It’s Dark” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
