Collaborations between established artists are dangerous things. Expertise doesn’t necessarily multiply when you put two talented people in a studio together — sometimes self-indulgence does. Thankfully, ‘Dragonflies’, the debut collaboration between Dhani Harrison and longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, avoids most of those pitfalls. It’s distinctive, understated and very listenable.
Much of that comes from the production. Godrich builds the record around soft, low-slung drums, analogue synths, piano and tape loops, while Harrison supplies some excellent songwriting. The result sits somewhere between electronic music, psychedelic folk and the more reflective end of Radiohead without sounding particularly beholden to any of those things.
Heart Or Head is a highlight, its gently psychedelic 6/8 rhythm providing an unusually loose foundation for Harrison's melodic instincts. Rather than smothering the song in studio trickery, though, Godrich gives it a fair bit of room to breathe.
Ophelia is even better. Built around plaintive piano, it demonstrates how effective the partnership becomes when both musicians resist showing off. There’s considerable technical knowhow behind the arrangement, but it’s deployed with a sense of subtlety.
Slower provides the clearest introduction to their shared aesthetic, combining handcrafted tape loops, haunted vocals and swelling strings into something simultaneously intimate and cinematic. It establishes the woozy, contemplative atmosphere that hangs over everything that follows, even if it doesn’t stand up that strongly on its own feet.
There are two ways to approach ‘Dragonflies’. The cynical version is that George Harrison’s son has made an arty record with one of the world’s most celebrated producers. The more generous — and ultimately more convincing — interpretation is that two musicians who don’t particularly need to prove anything have made music together because they wanted to. That freedom matters. Without an obvious commercial purpose, Harrison and Godrich have created something genuinely distinctive and considerably less self-indulgent than it had any right to be.
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