We’re all a multitude of voices within ourselves, believes Dominique Fils-Aimé. An inspiring Montreal artist who composes orally, she works with raw vocal materials to build sirenic layers within her songs. Our Roots Run Deep is her fourth album, following a themed trilogy which explored the history of African-American music.
Backed by naked instrumentation, Fils-Aimé is also sparing in her use of words. Haiku and mantra forms are clear influences where the idea of repetition is crucial. Fils-Aimé told FRUK, “We’re constantly bombarded with words and I’d love my music to balance this out. If you hear one sentence enough times you can meditate on it, so every single word matters and has a purpose.”
The myriad values implicit in this album include wellness, ecology, ancestry and a desire for personal liberty. On the title track, Fils-Aimé’s vocals mimic upright bass notes, making for a heady throb. As if channelling sing-song children’s games and gospel preaching, she sounds giddy to discover her roots running deep underground. There’s also a jazzy Dixieland burst that Sidney Bechet might have approved of. A plunked bass line on Just Let Me Go provides the song’s warm heartbeat over scattered percussion as Fils-Aimé cries out for release. To Walk Away continues the search for freedom with a handclapped rhythm, gleeful doo wops and sublime banks of voices to celebrate emotional rebirth.
The acapella vocables are vital in setting each song’s context, perhaps more so when considering the commonality of wordless chants. Fils-Aimé challenges our assumption that truths only lie in the coherence of spoken and sung words. Or Let It Burn has the fewest lyrics of any track here, yet its hushed hosannas serve to calm an inflamed setting. A polyrhythm of vocals on Quiet Down The Voices is sent to ease the narrator’s unrest, with Fils-Aimé centring herself back towards sanity.
This album could work equally as an expressive piece for dance theatre, but what’s striking about Fils-Aimé’s music is how it translates from stage to studio. Live, the chorales are simulated by instruments, allowing each soulful melody and message to shine through. And the messages are important, sung like fragments of old prayers yet noting modern concerns. ‘Leave me alone you bad thoughts/You got it all wrong, missed the spot’, Fils-Aimé cautions on My Mind At Ease, while guitar and drums thud like brain pulsations. More voices flow in like a soothing exorcism as Fils-Aimé gives her depressions room to exist and thus emerges victorious. The closing cut, Feeling Like A Plant, is a truly gnostic piece in sync with green life, the drums conjuring a dance of fire and shadows. The singer sounds recharged and at one with nature, watering her soul and absorbing sunlight through harmonic humming.
What comes to the surface in times of crisis, whether social or personal? Files-Aimé implies that spiritual survival is just as urgent as physical endurance. She offers a humanist side to healing where mind, soul and body connect to word, rhythm and imagery. An album that dreams in lush colours, Our Roots Run Deep is a stunning work of folk-magic and fellowship.
Our Roots Run Deep releases September 22, 2023 – https://singwithmi.bandcamp.com/album/our-roots-run-deep
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