Dominique Fils-Aime – Three Little Words (2021) [FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz]

‘Three Little Words’ concludes Dominique Fils-Aimé’s album trilogy exploring the roots of African-American musical culture. Each album carries with it a lesson that has been learned and then moulded into each subsequent volume. This final album is Fils-Aimé’s adaptation of soul music in the truest sense of the term: music that comes from the depths of her soul and is meant to challenge and enrich the souls of her listeners. It is at once both an acknowledgement and an appreciation of the different musical genres that live within her head and flavour her own soul. In music, as in with life, the best prognosticator is looking to the past. Perhaps her most musically diverse and eclectic album to date, Fils-Aimé’s distinct brand of incisively-delivered vocals resonate throughout ‘Three Little Words’, whether they are engaging the listener with the heartwarming 1950s-inspired doo-wop harmonies of While We Wait, or with the punchy brass-fueled crescendos of the more soulful Mind Made Up. Throughout the album, Dominique’s captivating yet gentle voice is backed by the spellbinding groove of African percussion, horns, synthesizer and expansive bass lines, the likes of which are never more prevalent than in Love Take Over with its coaxing, melodramatic drums that envelop the listener in a primal and soothing aural embrace.

Dominique Fils-Aimé is a JUNO Award-winning singer-songwriter from Montreal who draws inspiration from soul icons of the ’40s and ’60s such as Billie Holiday, Etta James, and Nina Simone. While her musical roots are grounded in early soul and jazz, her voice transcends contemporary urban soundscapes. Her sophomore record Stay Tuned! won the 2020 JUNO Award for “Vocal Jazz Album of the Year” as well as the Félix prize for “Best Jazz Album” at the ADISQ Gala, was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and was featured among the 19 best Canadian albums of 2019 according to CBC.

After launching her career by appearing in the Quebecois version of the show The Voice, Dominique Fils-Aimé, who is originally Haitian, went on to sing in many international festivals, from Montreal to Tokyo via Europe. A methodical artist, Fils-Aimé decided in 2017 to conceive of her music as a journey through black music and its history. She threw herself into a conceptual suite of three albums: a trilogy which concludes with Three Little Words. It comes after a first album released in 2018 called Nameless, which mostly explored blues, and the impressive Stay Tuned! with jazz roots, which came out in 2019, and received several awards including the prestigious JUNO Vocal Jazz Album of the Year Award. Talking about the idea behind this trilogy, Dominique Fils-Aimé explained: “this trilogy may look varied and eclectic, but everything stems from the same root. I followed the thread. We started with blues and sometimes darker songs, then we got into jazz. Then came this explosion of creativity. Jazz was the trunk from which several branches grew. Thus, this creative freedom in jazz was found in R & B, soul, hip hop, and in percussion and other traditional instruments that go straight to the heart. The trilogy therefore explores the ramifications of jazz as well as the roots of black music”. What is striking about listening to Three Little Words is the emphasis on the voice, and the sound work done with the artist’s voice. The voice sings but offers rhythm and punctuation to the songs. From the first track, Grow Mama Grow, vocal confetti unfolds behind the lead vocals… We find this idea on all the tracks, an idea that gradually becomes a signature, and it reminds us of a Bobby McFerrin, or the vocal work done by Kate Bush (on Hounds of Love in particular), or even some classical choral arrangements. Thus the very successful While We Wait, beginning as a little sixties soul piece, pauses so that an architecture of voices can take centre stage. The song is tinged with a dark and revolutionary tone, “we could be the change…” sings Dominique Fils-Aimé, in full voice. These vocal interactions make this album much more complex and lend a unique and innovative quality to Dominique Fils-Aimé’s art. We Are Light is one of the most beautiful examples of this. In total, this artist has brought forth fourteen pieces, as Dominique Fils-Aimé writes all her own songs. And then, as a postscript, a beautiful version of Stand By Me. – Yan Céh

Tracklist

1. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Grow Mama Grow
2. Dominique Fils-Aimé – While We Wait
3. Dominique Fils-Aimé – You Left Me
4. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Could It Be
5. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Being the Same
6. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Mind Made Up
7. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Fall and All
8. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Love Take Over
9. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Tall Lion Down
10. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Three Little Words
11. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Home to Me
12. Dominique Fils-Aimé – We Are Light
13. Dominique Fils-Aimé – The Healing Song
14. Dominique Fils-Aimé – Stand by Me

Download:

mqs.link_D0miniqueFilsAimThreeLittleW0rds202124882.rar

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