Track Listing

1. Gospel with No Lord
2. Canards Sauvages
3. Home Is Where It Hurts
4. Kfir
5. The Monk
6. Cats And Dogs
7. Money Note
8. Katie's Tea
9. Winter's Child
10. Waves
11. Sanges Sweet

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2528 in Music
• Released on: 2008-04-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Songlines magazine, June 2008 issue (#52)
French singer Camille Dalmais is the most exciting new talent on the continent. A lone voice amid a chorus of chanteuses, as much of a performance artist as a vocalist, Camille pushes boundaries while still managing to write catchy, melodic pop. Quirky, bolshy and gifted - think a more mellifluous Björk - she scooped the French equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize and won a BBC Award for World Music for her last album, Le Fil (The Thread). It was largely sung in French, albeit a French supplemented by idiosyncratic groans, whoops, screeches and other aural agitations.
A sold-out UK tour proved Camille an adventurous, self-aware and witty live performer, using her alternately sweet and sour voice as an instrument. This third studio album is the flower of over 200 shows, a confident and joyful record sung almost entirely in English, laying bare Camille's quite visionary musicality. With co-producer MaJiKer (a `body-piano-machine', according to his Myspace page), Camille mixes chanson-style stories with body percussion, minimalist trance techno, singing that swerves from sub-bass to high-pitched and her street-smart humour that occasionally veers on the smug. Brazilian band Barbatuques, beatboxer Sly Johnson and the piano-whacking Jamie Cullum help her craft an album that takes risk after risk yet, remarkably, never fails. From the elastic, operatic `Kfir' and the emotionally extreme `Canards Sauvages' (which features breathy rhythms, watery sound effects, squeaky cuica drums and ecstatic choirs) to the rocking single `Gospel with No Lord', Music Hole is a true work of art by a genuine artist.
Jane Cornwell

Album Description

Camille's third studio album 'Music Hole' shows a key turn in her career: it is mostly sung in English. "In 'Music Hole', I tried to mix the story-telling, "chansons" feel from musicals with something more tribal: body percussions, minimalist trance, sub bass and throat singing" says Camille.

'Music Hole' is co-produced by Camille and MaJiKer. It features collaborations with the body percussion masters from the Brazilian band Barbatuques, Jamie Cullum on piano percussions and beatbox by Sly Johnson.

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Customer Reviews

What a disappointment!
Having been a fan of this lady for years, dating back to the stuff she sang on the Nouvelle Vague albums, as well as Le Fil and Sac, both of which are works of genius, I found this album a massive disappointment.

Why oh why did you have to sell out like this!

Firstly, the broody, melancholic quirkyness has gone, only to be replaced with poppy commercialism that is, in my humble opinion, not suited to her voice. Secondly, why sing in English? Is this also an attempt to gain more commercial recognition?

As a massive fan of the earlier albums, I feel that this title is not only an unnatural progression but also a massive let down! Shame!!

A quick look at the ratings for this album on the Amazon site in her native France reveals that I am not the only fan disappointed by this effort!

I am not a person who refuses to adapt or appreciate anything that is different to the previous, I just don't think that this album is very good - in particular given the quality of her two previous efforts!

I need say no more!

Very different to Le Fil
I was blown away with Le Fil when it came out so I was curious to see how she would follow it up. I have to say that Music Hole is a completely different kettle of fish. Where as Le Fil was quite stripped down and minimal, Music Hole is a BIG album with lots of sounds and noises coming at you. I suspect it will take a few more listens to unravel all its intricacies.

Magical Monkeying About
The Wolf's Kookie Chanteuse collection scores another fine hit today.

If Ms Dalmais' splendid new recording 'Music Hole' doesn't have you
smiling from ear to ear from the moment you hit PLAY then you are likely
to be lacking in the JOY department of your brain's music appreciation centre.

There is a seam of rich humour running all the way through these eleven
extraordinary songs. There is also, however, pathos, soul and a highly
eclectic and refined musical sensibility.

Rhythms are often set in motion through repeated vocal beat loops; the
quirky, funky 'Home Is Where It Hurts' and the joyously barmy 'Money Note',
both uplifting examples.

The shuffling latin lilt of 'Canards Sauvages' is a duckalicious highpoint !

'Winter's Child' is a hauntingly beautiful composition demonstrating the
range of Ms Dalmais' remarkable voice to full effect.

'Cats And Dogs' is a chanson that's gonna make you laugh out loud.
The absurdity of anthropomorphism deftly and hilariously laid bare.
It has established itself as a firm favorite already in The Wolf Cave.

'The Monk' is another strangely affecting number. The complexity of
its' shifting, lilting cadences a creation of consumate beauty.

The magnificent 'Sanges Sweet' is a soulful, warmly glowing ending
to a truly remarkable project.

Promise me that you'll take a chance with this lady and my promise
in return is that you will have let a rare and special ray of sunshine into your life.

Highly Recommended.