DRAGONFLIES, DRAGONFLIES

Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich had known each other for more than twenty years before they finally decided to make music together. The two became friends while living in Los Angeles in the early 2000s and eventually worked together when Harrison brought Godrich in to help with his 2023 solo album, Innerstanding. A few years later, both were back in England when Harrison lent Godrich one of his father George Harrison's old tape machines. Soon they were getting together at Godrich's studio in Brixton, making tape loops and seeing where they might lead. Those sessions eventually became Dragonflies.

Harrison and Godrich approached Dragonflies as a true collaboration with Harrison focused largely on playing and singing, while Godrich captured and manipulated their performances using 24 track analog tape. They would record something, find a section they liked, physically create a tape loop from it, and then begin building around it.

The two also share some interesting musical reference points, including David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Beth Gibbons. Harrison has said that he often approaches music from the perspective of scoring a film, imagining a scene and then finding the music that belongs with it. Godrich, meanwhile, wasn't interested in making an album where the process became the point. For all the work that went into creating and manipulating the tape loops, he wanted people to hear songs rather than the mechanics behind them.

And what an album they made. Dragonflies is so well conceived and beautifully produced that I find myself paying as much attention to how it sounds as I do to the songs themselves. There are so many interesting sounds and details throughout the album, but Harrison and Godrich never seem compelled to fill every available space. It brings to mind David Sylvian, one of the artists they have cited as a reference point for Dragonflies, and his belief that what is left out of music can be every bit as important as what is put into it. Instruments enter and disappear, notes are allowed to decay, and silence becomes part of the arrangement. There is always room for the music to breathe.

Harrison has said that he wanted to make something that would “elevate the frequency and make everyone feel better after they listen to it.” This is an album made by two people who clearly care deeply about sound, how it is created, where it is placed, and just as importantly, when to leave it alone. The production is top notch and everything seems to have a reason for being there.

If Dragonflies began as an excuse for two friends to hang out and make music, I hope they find plenty of excuses to keep doing it.