Moneira

"The most delightful Scandinavian news since Susanne Sundfør. With our breath taken away, we await the follow-up." Télérama, FR

What are we but the sum of the experiences we carry within? Often we search to find acceptance for who we are, but shy away from the hidden parts that linger beneath the surface. “There is a deeper level to this,” as Moneira, or Daniela Dahl, sings in her debut single Colour Vision, first released on Playground Music Scandinavia last year.

It is a raw, daring and honest musical world that Stockholm-based singer-songwriter Daniela Dahl invites us into. Her debut album Colour Vision is a minimalist undertaking where each song tells a story, a world of innate emotion through which we are guided by Daniela’s rich voice. The songs have an imminence to them, heavy and deliberate, notably resting on the shoulders of the work of composers like Arvo Pärt; each pause in the piano or voice seems to ponder life itself, leaving the listener wondering where this road will lead next.

Daniela grew up in Stockholm in a middle-class suburban home. Colour Vision is coming to terms with what she herself would label as a dysfunctional childhood; she is frank about the difficult emotions often hidden behind a polished exterior: depression, escapism, and death. Since a young age, music has been Daniela’s constant companion. She took classical piano lessons as a child but eventually quit, though she never stopped composing. As an adult she studied at the Gotland School of Music Composition. More importantly, music has remained a life-line for her to process feelings, sometimes alone, sometimes on a couch with her mother.

Colour Vision is at once powerful and fragile with contrasts, tweaks, pauses, and melodies that span the full spectrum of human emotion. This is to be expected from an album that has taken a decade to find its true form. Moneira fits rightly within the Scandinavian Folk ballad traditions in the likes of Susanne Sundfør or Eva Dahlgren, but has a distinct melancholic tonality to her. The songs are accompanied by the majestic cello of Svante Henryson. At times an organ or a vibraphone will join in, expanding the sparse arrangements. David Åhlén sings on Inner song. The album has been produced and mixed by Tobias Fröberg, famous for his work with Ane Brun and Frida Hyvönen, and mastered by Tobias and Frida Claeson Johansson.  

Moneira invites us to let things be as they are, in their truest form: Wretchedness and Beauty, side by side, reminding us that life in colour vision is one of contrast and tension.

The single The Bird (Interesting to See) will be released via Jivvär April 9, 2021!