Le Fil, the second album for ridiculously gifted Parisienne vocalist Camille
Dalmais, is one of the most expressive, experimental albums to go
multi-platinum, anywhere, ever. Ridiculously popular in her homeland
(400,000 Frenchmen can't be wrong!), Camille's second slab is a cockeyed
concept record, in which the 28-year-old's glorious voice is layered on into
an army-of-she, caroling, croaking, and clicking her way through a
suite-like set of intensely rhythmic tunes strung along a conceptual
"thread" (i.e. Le Fil). Strung throughout the gear's 15-track/36-minute
main body, then resounding for another half-hour after the songs are done, is
a single resonating tone, ringing out, without cease, throughout the
entire album. The tone isn't a drone; it's just a simple B, hummed by
Camille, then looped into infinitum, with every song "arising" from it. This
B is a constant building block, a common key stitching the disc together
perfectly. That it's a vocal sound is as key as the key, for this kooky
conceptual compact disc is composed almost entirely from mouth sounds:
Camille, producer Majiker, and collaborateur Sly (of splintered Français
hip-hop collective Saïan Supa Crew) drawing inspiration from Zap Mama,
Matmos, and — of course! — Björk as they layer on singing, chanting, and all
manner of beat-boxing, cutting and splicing such syllablism into songs whose
percussive splutter cracks with that hip-hopper's make-it-spit! desire.
The
results are good enough to salivate over; Le Fil raises the stakes from
Camille's incredibly beautiful debut, Le Sac des Filles, making a major
statement that places Dalmais up alongside such statuesque figures as Kahimi
Karie, Haco, and — of course! — Björk. And, well, a chorus'll carol that
Björk did beat Camille to this punch, her 2004 outing Medúlla striking a
year in advance of Camille's gear (which was issued in France in the
ought-five, but has just gotten its rest-of-the-world love). But, as time
marches on, the specifics of calendars will matter little, and people will
turn to the respective puddings for proof. Medúlla is a fascinating failed
experiment on a grand scale that pales when placed next to its predecessor,
Björk's magnum opus Vespertine. But, with Le Fil, Camille comes up trumps,
essentially out-Björking Björk; her voice-centric work working as both an
outing of radical avant-gardism, and as melodic commercial-pop record. Its
white-skinned wild-eyed funk, its gorgeous chanson, its obsessive
miniatures, and its balletic ballads combe to make for an album that
makes a mockery of its radically reduced palette, and makes a great case for
being considered one of the very best records of the third millennium.
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