ALBUM REVIEW: Dagmar Zuniga – in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music

AD 93

Released: 10.04.26

Before being released by London label AD 93, Dagmar Zuniga’s album mostly circulated digitally. It is a collection of fourteen quick sketches and miniatures, recorded on a Tascam Portastudio in the 2019–2024 period. The hiss of the tape heightens the sense of fragility and ephemerality. Often the same tunes get repeated twice or more – like devotional mantras – sung with different partners, different emphases. The album contains tentative images and half-remembered melodies, hesitant flutes and ghostly pianos. It is both a real object and an imaginary record. I like it because of its unfinishedness, inviting listeners to fill in the blanks – to live and breathe with the songs.

Zuniga is based in New York though she seems to inhabit several places at the same time – unattached yet curiously grounded. Her lo-fi music reminds me of Vashti Bunyan’s demos and of the brittle songs of German home-recordist Sybille Baier. Closer in time, it evokes Maxine Funke’s slow, heartfelt soundscapes. But it conjures up more than a sonic déjà vu. Dagmar Zuniga creates immensity with very little indeed – singing, breathing, patiently sculpting statues out of thin air. I admire her intense minimalism.