Nameless

Like Sade – when she broke onto the scene in the 1980’s with her own brand of music – Dominique Fils-Aimé seems to have carved out her own niche in the musical landscape, with her own unique soundscape and melody structure. Dominique Fils-Aimé doesn’t seem as willing to pursue the ‘Smooth Operator’ pop songstress line that Sade very much occupied.

The opening track, Dominique’s version of ‘Strange Fruit’, is quite different. It is slow and strange, with a multi-layered, humming backing chorus, all sung by Dominique Fils-Aimé. It is a purely vocal track devoid of instruments. This is a brand-new take on a sadly still-relevant tragic song. The lack of instruments makes it even more eerie and solemn.

Birds

The album’s best track is ‘Birds!’ with its phenomenal upright bass that shakes your core and lays out the basic beat. This beat is surrounded by an amazing percussion soundscape – clapping, rainsticks and maracas, tambourine – interspersed yet growing as the track progresses. There is sparse drumming with perfectly timed pauses! All rounded out by her own backing vocals and chorus, this makes for a wonderful minimalist mix. Here, the whole is more than the sum of the instruments. If you like this track, you will like all of her tracks.

‘Home’ with its cool snare drum and upright bass is the second-best track on the album. As with all her tracks, her main vocals play off her own back vocals and backing chorus. She uses this chorus as the rhythmic yardstick throughout. Moreover, there is sparse yet highly potent, cool percussion. Another unusual difference is that they rarely use the hi-hat on any track.

‘Feeling Good’ is another of the great tracks on an album full of great tracks. It’s a purely vocal spin-off on the well-known ‘Summertime’, but she never actually sings the words: “And I’m feeling good.” We started with the eerie vocal ‘Strange Fruit’ and ended with another vocal track, but this time very uplifting and full of hope. I could listen to her sing all day long.

The title track – ‘Nameless’ – with its strumming and humming chorus, serves as the most atmospheric and subdued track on the album. It’s not often that a young artist creates something new, and especially not with their first album. Everyone who enjoys female vocals and great rhythms should give this album a listen, especially if you can find the LP. Nameless is cool, vibrant, colourful, and quite different. 

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