The Montreal singer-songwriter asserts her unique signature with a stripped-down and silky fourth album.

In a formidable trilogy of albums released in 2018 and 2021, Montrealer Dominique Fils-Aimé has developed a strong and original musical signature. So much so that we recognize her from the first notes of Our Roots Run Deep, with her harmonies which reverberate her voice endlessly and the delicate and visceral omnipresence of the percussion.

Between jazz and soul, this fourth album from the singer-songwriter, who once again worked with director Jacques Côté, is very stripped down – more so than her previous Three Little Words, which was more loaded with her quartet stringed. A burst of trumpet, a line of double bass, a light keyboard background, a discreet guitar or a touch of didgeridoo sometimes adorn the songs, in addition of course to the hand claps, another distinctive feature of the Dominique Fils-Aimé style.

All the space is thus left to the pregnant rhythm and the muffled grain of the singer, which in no way prevents the dramatic rises and the exaltation when it is necessary – in fact, the restraint only makes the explosions even more significant.

There is more than ever an incantatory side to Our Roots Run Deep. All written around the theme of growth and the necessity (or need) to move forward, Dominique Fils-Aimé’s songs contain barely a few sentences, repeated over and over until a feeling of hope emerges, or meditation, or joy, but above all power. Silky wrapped, these words end up impregnating themselves in us, swirling and also drawing us forward, in the company of a singer who manages to transform herself a little while remaining deeply herself.