Dominique Fils-Aimé - Three Little Words - 12" Vinyl LP (33 RPM)

180 Grams Heavyweight Black Vinyl
Plays at 33 RPM
Artwork by Siou-Min Julien 

Three Little Words concludes Dominique Fils-Aimé's album trilogy exploring the roots of African-American musical culture. Her 2018 acclaimed debut full length blues-tinged Nameless saw Fils-Aimé boldly confront historical silences and sorrows while her sophomore JUNO award winning album, Stay Tuned! delved into the civil rights movement of the 60s through jazz. Now with Three Little Words Dominique embraces the emotional lushness of soul music of yesterday and tomorrow.

Each album carries with it a lesson that has been learned and then moulded into each subsequent volume. This final album is Fils-Aimé's adaptation of soul music in the truest sense of the term: music that comes from the depths of her soul and is meant to challenge and enrich the souls of her listeners. It is at once both an acknowledgement and an appreciation of the different musical genres that live within her head and flavour her own soul. In music, as in with life, the best prognosticator is looking to the past.

It was of great importance that 'Three Little Words' end the trilogy in the light, with the understanding that light cannot come without first going through a period of darkness. There is a beautiful luminosity in confronting darkness, and the album is centered around self-healing and recognizing the importance of mental health. There is no shame in admitting that we are not okay today, and that we will work towards getting better tomorrow.

Fils-Aimé also unabashedly dives head-first into the importance of empathy and love when trying to affect social change, while also reminding that demanding freedom and challenging the collective consciousness can be a somewhat gradual process. The most powerful take-away is that love is omnipresent and constitutes the foundation of the human experience. Love is, quite simply, the all-important sixth element, and the building block of the energy that unites us all.

Perhaps her most musically diverse and eclectic album to date, Fils-Aimé's distinct brand of incisively-delivered vocals resonate throughout 'Three Little Words', whether they are engaging the listener with the heartwarming 1950s-inspired doo-wop harmonies of While We Wait, or with the punchy brass-fueled crescendos of the more soulful Mind Made Up. Throughout the album, Dominique’s captivating yet gentle voice is backed by the spellbinding groove of African percussion, horns, synthesizer and expansive bass lines, the likes of which are never more prevalent than in Love Take Over with its coaxing, melodramatic drums that envelop the listener in a primal and soothing aural embrace.

Integral to the trilogy as a whole has been the tireless work of acclaimed record producer, musical arranger and mixer Jacques Roy. In Fils-Aimé's own words, Roy has been directly responsible for connecting her voice with the multitude of other sounds on 'Three Little Words,' always ensuring that the necessary frequencies are covered and accounted for. “Jacques is the glue that has held this trilogy together with his open-mindedness and his willingness to delve deep in the search to understand exactly what it is that I'm trying to say with my music,” exclaims Dominique.