Exotic Treasure

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday February 18, 2006

Bernard Zuel

An intellectual exploration of the voice has an emotional resonance.

CAMILLE

Le Fil (Virgin France)

All the flag-wearing, chest-beating parochialism on display on Australia Day, even at the supposedly "alternative" Big Day Out, makes it harder to argue that Australians are genuinely open to the world, or even a neighbouring suburb.

Culturally, this is even starker. Except for your token Amelie or gimmicky pop song, we are about as interested in what's happening outside the Anglophone world as we are in hearing criticism of our purported egalitarian nature.

That would be one argument for why this album, released in Europe and the UK almost a year ago, still hasn't got Australian distribution.

There are enough ideas, adventure and brain-tickling tunes in Le Fil, the second album from French singer Camille, to entertain anyone prepared to step outside their door, if only to ask a decent record store to order it from France (or you order it online).

The title means "the thread", which at a basic level refers to the one note that runs through all 15 tracks (none of which make four minutes; some don't even make one minute) like a low hum. It's an almost subliminal constant whether the songs have folk, arthouse or something close to straightforward pop leanings.

However, the real thread running through this album is her exploration of the voice as a tool - not a weapon, or a seducer, but somewhere in between.

A number of tracks, Janine I, Janine II, Janine III and Senza for example, are built purely from layers of voices so that percussion, rhythm and lead spring from the same source. Others playfully, sometimes mournfully, bounce the voices off the musical backing. For example, Au Port begins in a vaguely African manner, turns Latin via swaying brass but then climaxes operatically - while the more conventionally French Pour Que L'amour Me Quitte is as gentle as murmuring, a guitar playing against her close-to-the-mic voice.

While she is not in their class, Camille's closest comparison would be with Bjork, particularly her voice-only album Medulla, and Kate Bush's recent Ariel. Like them, Le Fil is a reminder that even with some music clearly sprung from the intellect, as a listener it still pays to feel it before you think it.

Listen to Camille's Au Port at smh.com.au/music

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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