Camille’s “Ta Douleur” starts a capella, and when the backing tracks come in, they’re as minimal (but not minimalist; one is exhausted by that pervasive confusion) as can be: a dry bassline, and a few sounds made with the body. Handclaps, fingersnaps, awkward clicks and raspberries, exclamations and gargles. It’s the distant distant grandniece of the burbling baby looped in “Are You That Somebody” and the oldskool beatboxing, lacking either Timbaland’s or Doug E. Fresh’s virtuosity or any interest thereto. What makes it all even odder is that the lead vocal is neither primitive nor avant, not hip-hop nor r’n’b nor even indie silliness; it’s a quiet exercise in pop melody, sewn from seven thousand minor hooks, Erasure, Suzanne Vega, Norma Ray, dunno what others, dunno what to make of this, the first perfect song of the summer.
Posted by jane at June 27, 2005 07:02 AM | TrackBack