a lily: id-dar tal-missier

Id-Dar Tal-Missier (Maltese for "The House of the Father") is the new solo album from yndi halda founding member James Vella. James wrote and performed all the instrumentation on Id-Dar Tal-Missier, recording largely at home on his own setup, creating finished pieces layer-by-layer. Though the main body of composition is based on guitar and voice, Vella's list of instruments also includes banjo, cello, organ, xylophone, an ancient Chinese harp named guzheng, and drumkit, amounting to subtle and intelligent arrangements and beautiful textures. A few contributions from Vella's friends also grace the record: Mercury nominee C Duncan lends a lush choral vocal arrangement to "Banana Moth" and yndi halda co-founder Daniel Neal performs violin across several pieces. Often inspired by non-musical forms, Vella writes that Id-Dar Tal-Missier was instead created under the influence of sensory experiences. He lists filmmakers, Werner Herzog and Apichatpong Weerasethakul; the TV show Stranger Things; his dog Sully; the ("painstaking") process of writing his first novel; books by Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, John Cheever, and Carson McCullers; visits to India, South America, and the Middle East. The artwork for Id-Dar Tal-Missier is based on photographs by James's father Mark who, since his retirement from medicine, has entered the world of nature photography. These photos were taken in Myanmar in early 2018; they reference the openness and immediacy of everything.