Kansas City artist Matt Dill’s debut album, Lila Rasa, is something of a conscious experience. It is the awakening of an artist in his day to day moments, moments which collect as songs that drift in and out of an overcast atmosphere and into a deep unconscious of noise. But unlike artists who struggle to walk the line between accessible song writing and esoteric noise, Dill pulls the two elements together in slow integrations, in organic swells that harmoniously blend the landscape of a melodious yet somber reality with the aesthetics of a noisy, streamlined unconscious.

The title track to Lila Rasa is a holistic introduction to the album. It is an ensemble of Dill’s pulsating electronics, the drifting strings of Ben Weir, and the moving, operatic voice of Angela Schroder. Dill’s subtle sense of melody and loose structure encapsulates the album’s dream-like narrative and plays as a testament to the sonic experience throughout the album. It is a preface to songs like “Mountain Side”, which awakes out of track three’s edgy electronic commotion into a slow-paced lumbering lull, where Dill croons somber, downcast melodies over Weir’s pastoral yet grainy electronics.

But Dill’s thirty-one minute Lila Rasa narrative is only as strong and believable as the storyteller’s ability to deliver. His authority to control the transitions between states of electronic clamor and song writing is solidified by his production prowess. The noise works because the noise is controlled. Tracks like “Arjunaugusta” produce thick drones with pulsating saw teeth that drift in and out amongst lush analog sine waves and become more polished as they envelop the higher registers; thin, high notes flutter in and out along with the distant operatic voices in the background to fill up the ensemble, all of which are guided by Dill’s meticulous ear. There is much technique involved with Lila Rasa, but the tediousness of technique is not apparent, it is eclipsed by Dill’s ability to drift listeners in and out of different states in seamless lulls of matchless songwriting.