It Gives Me Fever
Thomas Horan | Chapel Hill, NC | 08/13/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Though recorded for an indy label in the damp north of England, Anna Domino's self-titled full length feels like the soundtrack to a summer holiday on the Mediterranean coast of France. It's really a fusion, combining the snap-your-fingers coolness of cocktail jazz with relaxing, after-party synthetics and electronic beats. As a vocalist, Domino shows a lot of finesse. She lacks the range and richness of a singer like Tracey Thorn, but this gives her voice a chic, listless appeal. Had she been born thirty years earlier, Domino would undoubtedly have been an infamous lounge chanteuse.
A few of the overproduced tracks on this album do skirt dangerously close to the adult contemporary genre, but most of the music feels just right. And as you would expect, LTM does their usual first-class job with the liner notes and bonus tracks. When the gray winter comes, this CD will help you remember the warm sunshine.
"
'In Waking Dreams I Haunt My Youth....'
Paul Ess. | Holywell, N.Wales,UK. | 10/17/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Anna Domino's credentials are impressive. On this, her first solo album, she works with Alan Rankine (Associates), Paul Haig (Joseph K), Factory Records (!), and Les Disques du Crepiscule (legendary Euro indie label with arty frills - responsible for Repetition's orgasmic 'Fade Out/the Still Reflex' among many others).
In a previous life as the Bush Tetras, she was produced by Phillip Glass. She oozes imperious quality from every pore.
'AD',(deliberate I'd opine) is poppy, sultry-voice jazz with dark undercurrents of gothic and drama, squeezed tight into a very small space. Danceable AND acidically lyrical.
The Factory thing is (predictably) vital. This funky jazz thing was a kind of tread-water between the initial Joy Division/New Order/James frenzy, and the imbecilic sub-culture nonsense known as 'Madchester'.
There was more; Swamp Children, Kalima, Carol Clerk-Miaow etc, each stretching the Euro-Café canopy over varying degrees of rhythm and experimentation. Each with one eye on art and kudos, but, shiftily, the other very much on the Top Twenty. (This stuff would fly now, but at the time, the 10 years post-punk, the charts were particularly strong, giving critic's darlings Anna and the likes of Alison Stratton no chance).
And in a way, 'AD' takes off from where Weekend's 'La Variete' ends, but good as Domino is, she's no Stratton. Her music's nowhere near as subtle for one thing, but she can carry a hook as good as the next cat and her lyrics are a joy. You can hear that typical Factory earthy intellectualism; so prevalent in Northern English literature since the year dot, scything through the Euro-beats like a knife through butter. She must've drawn Wilson and co to her like bee's to nectar.
As with most jazz, you get the feeling it's all just been fondly thrown together, but 'AD' transcends this slightly. There's a fluency of movement and giddy spaciousness, too slick to be chance. There's far too much diversity, too much clarity, both of sound and idealism for it to be random.
It's a fine album, how could it not be - and to my delight, this release contains the 12" version of the beautiful single 'Summer', lovingly remixed by Arthur Baker, which I bought all those years ago.
See? I was the epitome of taste, hip and cool even then."
Track Listings (15) - Disc #1