Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn – Quiet In A World Full Of Noise

★★★☆

Released October 4th, 2024 on Merge Records

These songs began as Spencer Zahn’s heartbroken piano writing. They were lonely pieces that came in the aftermath of a breakup. Originally, the plan hadn’t been to do anything with them. They were therapy more than anything else. His recent songwriting partner, though, had other ideas in the matter. Dawn Richard, Making The Band alumni, Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money member, found something compelling in the pieces. She immediately began writing over them. The result is the hushed, near-ambient R&B work present on Quiet In A World Full Of Noise.

It’s not quite jazz, but it carries the best qualities of torchlight vocal jazz. It’s not classical, but the contributions from others, including the Budapest Film Orchestra, make each track breathe. They become more than just vehicles for Richards’s Roberta Flack-esque vocals. They are entire worlds, self-contained inside the boundaries of their runtimes. Witness the cinematic swell near the end of “Moments for Stillness.”

Richard is willing to pour her heart out into it alongside this. She deals with death, her reaction to it, and works through her ability to continue to survive despite the trauma setting in on all sides. Like her previous collaboration with Spencer Zahn, 2022’s Pigments, it represents a wide left turn from where Dawn Richard originally made her mark. Unlike Pigments, Quiet In A World Full Of Noise finds Richard stepping out in front. She’s more than just another voice in the orchestra here. The others work to support her this time, and the results are fascinating.

In a project like this, where the focus is on subtlety, there is a tendency for the songs to blend into each other. That is certainly present here as well. The albums consistent pacing doesn’t do it any favors in this regard either. It’s not exactly easy to parse out into a playlist, although it would likely make a good accompaniment to a swanky kind of gathering. If you’re the patient sort of listener, though, there is a lot on Quiet In A World Full Of Noise that will reveal itself to you in time.

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