Dom La Nena
So the other album that has been on constant repeat this past week - and is quite rightly already added to my Yearlist - is one that if it hadn't been for someone with a far more discerning musical palate than myself, I doubt that would have ever stumbled across... And which on this evidence I strongly suspect would have been my loss...
Dominique Pinto - or Dom La Nena (Dominique the "little one") as she is better known to everyone, save friends and family - is a multi-talented (and multilingual!) Brazilian-born cellist and songwriter, who having lived and studied the cello in Buenos Aires, currently resides in Paris. She records in four languages - her native Portuguese, Spanish, French and English - and while my dodgy Spanish (learnt thanks to spending the best part of a year in La Perla Tapatía) has helped (the same can't be said of any Portuguese that I picked up during a couple of weeks in Lisboa) - it isn't necessary (although arguably desirable) to fully understand the lyrics to appreciate an album as good as this...
"Soyo" (an interesting wordplay on "Soy Yo - I am !") is Dom La Nena's sophomore album release and follows 2013's "Ela" ("She"). Apparently Dom has been touring almost constantly since the age of 18 (including a stint with Jane Birkin's touring band) and a number of these songs feel and sound (if my dodgy translation skills are anything to go by) as if they could have been written whilst she was on the road - reflecting the transitory nature touring entails...
The opening track "La Nena Soy Yo," with its (pleasantly unexpected) jaunty ukulele contributes to an outwardly upbeat number. Indeed the overwhelming feeling of the album - aided by guitar, drums, percussion, and a hint of a Brazilian samba rhythm and latin vibes - is one of relaxing up-tempo yet laid-back rhythmic melodies. However by the lyrics Dom appears to be reasserting her own identity and this leaves an impression that there's a melancholy lyrical edge to both this and a number of the songs on the album - influenced - perhaps - by the toil of being on the road for so long?
The feeling of restlessness is also evoked by "Golondrina," the migrating swallow of the song's title acts a metaphor for that longing for home. A hit for Nana Mouskouri, here Dom strips away the somewhat cheesy Mariachi-inspired backing of Mouskouri's version (I discovered the song was written by Mexican composer Narciso Serradel Sevilla in the nineteenth century), replacing it with plaintive piano, snare drum and cello. There's a haunting live version from the Québec's Festival d'Eté that I've found and embedded below and which perfectly captures the heartfelt sentiment of the song...
There are three songs on this album that Dom performs in Portuguese - "Vivo na maré" - I live on the tide", "Volto já - I'll be right back"; the hauntingly beautiful "Lisboa" all stand-out and although I don't really understand a word - to be honest my grasp of Portuguese never really got much further than "Obrigado" - but (and to quote economist and NY Times contributor Professor Paul Krugman), you know what? Who cares? Awesome...
I'm on slightly better footing with "Juste une chanson" - there's an incredibly sympathetic cadence that perfectly marries rhythms to the lyrics - and while it may be "just a song" - it would sit quite happily alongside any of Carla's "Little French Songs" - especially in the way the vocals and rhythm seamlessly segue from Latin-spiced Portuguese to the refrain in French... In an interview and when asked about which language she writes in, Dom commented that the language was often based on the particular melody and this song is the perfect example.
As I mentioned, Dom also sings in English on the album as here she recalls the recently passed "Carnaval," describing the very Brazilian festival just passed. But if Carnival is lively, up-beat brash and noisy, by contrast the song has a subdued "morning after the night before" feel...
And while every track on this album is an absolute gem, ultimately no review of this album would be complete without mentioning "Llegaré," a song that - once again returning to the theme of restlessness that permeates throughout this album - captures the disorientating nature of living from city to city... Here, building on deceptively simple piano and throwing in the sweetest of haunting cellos, the melody is coupled with her angelic vocals as Dom wonders where, when and if she will finally arrive at somewhere to call home. Now I've always been a sucker for pianos and orchestral strings and this song has both in spades, so lets just cut to the chase and say that I doubt whether there'll be a better song released all year than this...
"Soyo" is an evocative and atmospheric album - deservedly Yearlist material - one that has rekindled my love of Música y canciones latinas in all it's guises and which has also introduced me to the most incredibly talented of artists in Dom la Nena. Effortlessly multilingual, an accomplished cellist and a singer-songwriter with a knack of holding the listener spellbound with her angelic voice, I'm eagerly looking forward to devouring her back catalogue and trying frantically to rearrange my schedule in the hope of catching her live when she plays LA next month...
Dom La Nena Website
"Soyo" (Bandcamp) via Six Degrees Records
Dominique Pinto - or Dom La Nena (Dominique the "little one") as she is better known to everyone, save friends and family - is a multi-talented (and multilingual!) Brazilian-born cellist and songwriter, who having lived and studied the cello in Buenos Aires, currently resides in Paris. She records in four languages - her native Portuguese, Spanish, French and English - and while my dodgy Spanish (learnt thanks to spending the best part of a year in La Perla Tapatía) has helped (the same can't be said of any Portuguese that I picked up during a couple of weeks in Lisboa) - it isn't necessary (although arguably desirable) to fully understand the lyrics to appreciate an album as good as this...
"Soyo" (an interesting wordplay on "Soy Yo - I am !") is Dom La Nena's sophomore album release and follows 2013's "Ela" ("She"). Apparently Dom has been touring almost constantly since the age of 18 (including a stint with Jane Birkin's touring band) and a number of these songs feel and sound (if my dodgy translation skills are anything to go by) as if they could have been written whilst she was on the road - reflecting the transitory nature touring entails...
The opening track "La Nena Soy Yo," with its (pleasantly unexpected) jaunty ukulele contributes to an outwardly upbeat number. Indeed the overwhelming feeling of the album - aided by guitar, drums, percussion, and a hint of a Brazilian samba rhythm and latin vibes - is one of relaxing up-tempo yet laid-back rhythmic melodies. However by the lyrics Dom appears to be reasserting her own identity and this leaves an impression that there's a melancholy lyrical edge to both this and a number of the songs on the album - influenced - perhaps - by the toil of being on the road for so long?
The feeling of restlessness is also evoked by "Golondrina," the migrating swallow of the song's title acts a metaphor for that longing for home. A hit for Nana Mouskouri, here Dom strips away the somewhat cheesy Mariachi-inspired backing of Mouskouri's version (I discovered the song was written by Mexican composer Narciso Serradel Sevilla in the nineteenth century), replacing it with plaintive piano, snare drum and cello. There's a haunting live version from the Québec's Festival d'Eté that I've found and embedded below and which perfectly captures the heartfelt sentiment of the song...
As I mentioned, Dom also sings in English on the album as here she recalls the recently passed "Carnaval," describing the very Brazilian festival just passed. But if Carnival is lively, up-beat brash and noisy, by contrast the song has a subdued "morning after the night before" feel...
And while every track on this album is an absolute gem, ultimately no review of this album would be complete without mentioning "Llegaré," a song that - once again returning to the theme of restlessness that permeates throughout this album - captures the disorientating nature of living from city to city... Here, building on deceptively simple piano and throwing in the sweetest of haunting cellos, the melody is coupled with her angelic vocals as Dom wonders where, when and if she will finally arrive at somewhere to call home. Now I've always been a sucker for pianos and orchestral strings and this song has both in spades, so lets just cut to the chase and say that I doubt whether there'll be a better song released all year than this...
Dom La Nena Website
"Soyo" (Bandcamp) via Six Degrees Records
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