Lucrecia Dalt was born in Pereira, Colombia in 1980. She studied civil engineering and worked for two years in a geotechnical company in Medellin before deciding to pursue music.
Her first recordings were released by Columbian collective Series under the name Lucrecia. After meeting Gudrun Gut, she contributed four songs to the 4 Women No Cry compilation released on Monika Enterprise in 2008.
After moving to Europe she released a series of recordings, including a release on Nicolás Jaar's Other People imprint and a series of collaborations with Aaron Dilloway. Among her more recent releases are the albums Anticlines (2018) and No Era Sólida (2020) on RVNG Intl.
Like the whirr of a wake-up call, Lucrecia Dalt’s metallic compositions entice us to rethink the possibilities of materiality and existence. The Colombian musician and sound artist has carved out a place at the contemporary frontiers of avant-garde and electronic music, hardware in hand, to channel age-old questions into a distinct and transgressive musical language.
Perhaps the ability to dig a little deeper is hard-wired into Dalt’s creative process through her background as a geotechnical engineer. Now residing in Berlin, Dalt often seeks inspiration in the worlds of fiction, poetry, geology and desire, excavating nuanced references to untangle and respond to in her music. At times, this exploratory impulse surfaces like an introspective call and response experiment with her source material, forming new perspectives on ideas rooted in Colombian mythology to German New Wave cinema. Dalt’s conceptual blueprints are intimate and intricate, emerging like cyanotypes cast in the sun. Around these frameworks she shapes her sound, using analogue instrumentation, a vast array of synthesizers and the processed glow of her voice.
Dalt joined the RVNG family in 2018 with the release of Anticlines. Interspersed with enigmatic metaphors, the record channels at its core the principle of tectonic plates compressing stratified rock: old material is pushed to the centre and sometimes becomes exposed. Guided by this concern with boundaries and edges, Dalt reframes traditional Latin American rhythms beside visceral tones of electronic composition and fragmented spoken word, tracing new contours in the topography of human consciousness. The poetic lyrics of Anticlines were written collaboratively between Dalt and artist Henry Andersen, and the accompanying artwork was realised by visual artist and ongoing collaborator Regina de Miguel.
With the release of Dalt’s seventh album No era sólida (2020), another world is located in her universe. In an embrace of introspection, Dalt sets out to capture the moment when one becomes pure sound. This transcendent process of creation summons Lia: an apparition of the artist as possessed by mimetic impulses. Language is dissolved into an evocative collection of glossolalia as the record swells with rhythmic tremors and the lunar echoes of a lawless organism tethered to sonic hardware. Navigating through each song as a different state experienced by Lia, the album closes with spoken word reflections on the existence of an unworldly lifeform seeded through sound.
Her sound work has been presented internationally in spaces such as Issue Project Room, Pioneer Works in New York, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Museum of Modern Artin Medellín, the Mies van der Rohe pavilion in Barcelona, the New South Walles art gallery in Sydney, among others.
Millones
Lucrecia Dalt Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I don't want to wake up at night
for a message like
Breathing on me
Light in my eyes
Breathing is all I give
Breathing just to get some sleep
Lucrecia Dalt's Millones is a hauntingly beautiful song that depicts the struggles of a person who is struggling with anxiety and depression. The lyrics suggest that the singer is plagued with a million thoughts at night and doesn't want to wake up. The message they receive is suffocating and feels like the breath is being taken away. The light in their eyes could be a metaphor for hope, but it could also be a painful reminder of their suffering. The singer is barely getting by and is only giving the bare minimum - breathing - just to get some sleep.
The emotional depth and rawness of this song are what make it stand out. The lyrics are beautifully crafted and have a poetic quality that resonates with listeners. The use of repetition makes the message more poignant, and the haunting melody adds to the overall impact of the song. It's a perfect representation of how depression and anxiety can feel suffocating and overwhelming.
Line by Line Meaning
A million thoughts come to me at night and I won't
Countless ideas and musings fill my mind every night, but I refuse
I don't want to wake up at night
I dread arousing from sleep in the middle of the night
for a message like
As insignificant as a brief communication
Breathing on me
Suffocating and overwhelming me
Light in my eyes
An illumination that blinds and disorients me
Breathing is all I give
All that I am capable of is providing air to survive
Breathing just to get some sleep
The sole purpose of inhaling and exhaling is to achieve slumber
Writer(s): Lucrecia Dalt
Contributed by Elena M. Suggest a correction in the comments below.