Laryssa Kim—an Italo-Congolese singer, composer, dancer, performance artist, and student of acousmatics—melds musique concrète and processed vocals into otherworldly, polymorphous compositions that abandon typical song structures. The title of Oneironauts, a 2020 performance, speaks to the Brussels-based musician’s wandering ethos: she traverses dream states to draw out the strange beauty lurking beneath our everyday consciousness. On her debut album, Contezza (which in Italian means “awareness”), she casts a trance-inducing spell with atmospheric electroacoustic arrangements and vocals in English, Italian, and French. It’s her most accomplished work yet, a mesmerizing odyssey guided by sharp intention.
Kim takes her time across Contezza, slowly unfurling field recordings, stretches of eerie ambient tones, and her own tender vocalizations. The continuous mix, threaded together with rushing waves and rolling thunder, deepens the contemplative intensity, as though Kim were moving through nature and transforming what she sees into sweeping, fragmented sounds of her own. The opening “Les Amants d’Osmium – 76 OS” and “Tum Tum – Cuori in Tumulto” stitch together drones, birdsong, and an insistent digital patter that resembles a thumping heartbeat, welcoming listeners into Kim’s unsettlingly beautiful world. Synth tones pierce “Scegli Me – Contesa,” where a haunting chorus of Kim’s looped humming levitates like an encroaching fog. “Scegli me/Portami con te/Portami nel sogno,” (“Choose me/Bring me with you/Take me into the dream”) she sings, establishing the album’s hypnagogic tone with her lullaby-like intonation.
Contezza dovetails with Kim’s inspirations in intriguing ways. Her early work drew on reggae riddims, informed by a childhood love of Bob Marley; on the French-language track “L’attente – Auspicio,” a throbbing bassline forms a taut beat behind her echoing vocals, yielding a seductive, bare-bones trip-hop track. On “Obsession – Indomita Mente,” another standout, a metronomic click and dramatic synth sweeps set the stage for Kim’s lovelorn lyrics: “Can’t take the thought of you anymore/It’s like a chain,” she sings softly, tempering the bittersweet kiss-off: “Keep on fighting it… But now I know/I know/I’ll let you go.” She warps the final line into a contorted, held note that slips into a clattering beat, painting a surprisingly broad emotional arc in under five minutes.
The abstract interludes that punctuate Contezza lend to its hypnotic qualities. The synths that crinkle in on themselves on “Intimacy – Reserbo” lead into a gorgeous chorus and spoken-word outro flecked with birdsong, while “Voeu – Canto Votivo” dabbles with even more extreme vocal manipulation, distorting Kim’s voice into an oscillating, vibrantly reedy instrument. Like much of Contezza, it’s cerebral but never insular—throughout, Kim balances her esoteric impulses with a radiant warmth. On “Ma Chi Sei – Ascoso,” a tenderhearted ballad toward the end of the album, Kim reaches for answers to existential questions posed both to herself and listeners: “Cosa senti?/Cosa pensi?/Cosa vuoi?/Chi sei?” she asks, the melody dancing along a tightrope (“What do you hear?/What do you think?/What do you want?/Who are you?”). Then the song dissolves into a percussive, uplifting beat; a sense of optimism emerges from the uncertainty, driving home Contezza’s belief in liberation from limitation.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
