It feels almost inevitable that Colombian composer and vocalist Lucrecia Dalt would unveil her latest work, A Danger to Ourselves, within the walls of Santa Fe’s Institute of Contemporary Art. Her music is not merely sound but structure—an architecture of tones, rhythms, and silences. And Santa Fe, with its long devotion to art as lifeblood, seems destined to receive it.
Lucrecia Dalt promo | ICA
Dalt, in recent years joined by the luminous presence of David Sylvian, has lingered in Santa Fe’s orbit—its desert light, its rarified air, its curious blend of traditions. Together they have been shaping experimental pop that resists definition, a music where Spanish and Anglo echoes are braided into surreal, cinematic compositions. It is a sound at once rooted and otherworldly, intimate yet vast.
David Sylvian and Lucrecia Dalt | Instagram
Much of New Mexico’s quiet power hums through this new album. “There is wisdom in the soil,” Dalt sings, as if channeling the land itself. Here, inspiration seems drawn not only from the sky’s expanse but also from the mineral depths, from the purity of mountain forests and the ancient weight of earth.
A Danger to Ourselves shimmers as both culmination and threshold, a work radiant with Dalt’s signature vision yet heightened by Sylvian’s spectral contributions. It feels less like an album than an environment, a place one enters and inhabits.
That place will soon expand into live performance. On October 24, Santa Fe audiences will encounter the music in its embodied form: Dalt on vocals, guitar, and electronics, joined by Jonah Minkus on drums and percussion and Cyrus Campbell on bass and contrabass. The evening promises not merely a concert, but an immersion—a crossing into sound’s architecture.
Santa Fe has long been an international city of art, but when figures such as Dalt and Sylvian step into its story, the desert hush tilts, and the world listens.
For more information on Lucrecia Dalt’s performance, visit https://www.icasantafe.org.
For more information on A Danger to Ourselves, go to her Bandcamp site: https://lucreciadalt.bandcamp.com/album/a-danger-to-ourselves.
Brian C. Nixon, Ph.D., is Chief Academic Officer and professor at Veritas International University in Albuquerque. As a writer, musician, and artist, his interests surround the philosophical transcendentals: truth, beauty, and goodness. You can contact Brian via his Bandcamp email address: https://briancharlesnixon.bandcamp.com
