Dominique A
Encyclopedia
Dominique Ané better known as "Dominique A," is a French songwriter and singer.
, France, Dominique Ané is the only child of a teacher and a homemaker
. He was passionate about literature and music from a young age. He was interested in the punk music of the time, but at the age of 14, at the beginning of the 1980s, he started to appreciate the dark romanticism
of the New Wave
movement. After his baccalaureate
, he studied humanities
for a year, and, at the same time, did a range of odd jobs, including his spell as a utility man for an FM radio station in Nantes
, where his family lived. At around the age of 16, he started up a band, John Merrick, named after the hero of the film The Elephant Man
, a cult film from David Lynch
.
The foursome recorded around 45 somber, tormented songs and gave a number of concerts in the area around Nantes. Later, with the singer Katerine
, he recorded a number of songs, in a different, more upbeat and livelier style.
, which he considered to be more literary than musical. His first CD, released by the Nantes label, Lithium, met with critical acclaim, appreciated by the eminent alternative magazine, Les Inrockuptibles
, and by Bernard Lenoir
, the 'John Peel
' of France. Furthermore, his song, Le Courage des oiseaux, (the Courage of the Birds), was an underground hit.
From 1992 onwards, he started to produce more and more live shows, either with a backing band, or solo. His commercial success grew in 1995, with Le twenty-two bar, a single off the album, La Mémoire Neuve, but this success left a bitter taste in Dominique's mouth, as he considered the song to be particularly badly written.
In 2000, he composed the score for Antoine Desrosières' black comedy film Banqueroute.
's dark 2002 album, L'Imprudence shocked him to the point that it put his music into question and he decided to explore differents ways of working. He decided to compile what he considered to be the first part of a musical time capsule, a longbox
entitled Le Détour. He asked his fans to write about their relationship with his music, and some of their letters were published in the booklet accompanying Le Détour.
For his subsequent album, he wanted to experiment and consequently, for the first time, he gave control over the album to a third party, the team who produced L'Imprudence. The end result would be Tout sera comme avant (Everything will be like it was before), which was released in 2004. Unfortunately, many fans had difficulty trying to buy it. At the same time, Dominique did a lot of live shows, with diverse arrangements: with a big band, with minimalistic backing, or all alone (where he would experiment with oversampling
).
In March 2006, L'Horizon came out, a new work that he produced alongside Dominique Brusson, with whom he had made the early album, Remué. It was the first time that Dominique A returned to work with a producer. He was backed by his old collaborators, Sacha Toorop and Olivier Mellano, as well as the musicians with whom he produced Tout sera comme avant. Dominique A had recently quit his record label, Labels, due to his desire for more creative freedom; consequently, it is no surprise that he describes L'Horizon as his most experimental work to date.
's second album, Slalom Dale and wrote Où est la ville ? for Jane Birkin
's 2006 album, Fictions. He has also sang the song Veruca Salt et Frank Black in trio with Keren Ann
and Vincent Delerm
on the latter's second album, Kensington Square.
Dominique A has inspired and influenced many artists. He has influenced many instrumentalist artists, such as Yann Tiersen
and the Norwegian
electro
band, Oslo Telescopic, who named one of their albums The Dominique O Project. Lyrically, his movement away from the constraints of chanson
moved many others- including Miossec
, Holden and Arman Méliès – by showing them that it was possible to make music that reflected their tastes and feelings using French.
Early life
Born on the 6 October 1968 in ProvinsProvins
Provins is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.Provins, a town of medieval fairs, became a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 2001.-Administration:...
, France, Dominique Ané is the only child of a teacher and a homemaker
Homemaker
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...
. He was passionate about literature and music from a young age. He was interested in the punk music of the time, but at the age of 14, at the beginning of the 1980s, he started to appreciate the dark romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
of the New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
movement. After his baccalaureate
European Baccalaureate
The European Baccalaureate is awarded to students who successfully managed to complete the final year exam at a European School. These are mainly attended by students whose parents work for a European Institution. There are currently 14 European Schools.This diploma should not be confused with...
, he studied humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
for a year, and, at the same time, did a range of odd jobs, including his spell as a utility man for an FM radio station in Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
, where his family lived. At around the age of 16, he started up a band, John Merrick, named after the hero of the film The Elephant Man
The Elephant Man (film)
The Elephant Man is a 1980 American drama film based on the true story of Joseph Merrick , a severely deformed man in 19th century London...
, a cult film from David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
.
The foursome recorded around 45 somber, tormented songs and gave a number of concerts in the area around Nantes. Later, with the singer Katerine
Philippe Katerine
Philippe Katerine is a French singer who began his career in 1991. Some of his popular singles include "Mon coeur balance", "Je vous emmerde" and "Louxor j'adore". Given that his songs are mainly in French, he hasn't gained much popularity outside of France...
, he recorded a number of songs, in a different, more upbeat and livelier style.
Beginning of a career
He began, at the start of the 1990s, to record more songs, which were both minimalist and rock in style. He wanted to break with the traditional chansonChanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
, which he considered to be more literary than musical. His first CD, released by the Nantes label, Lithium, met with critical acclaim, appreciated by the eminent alternative magazine, Les Inrockuptibles
Les Inrockuptibles
Les Inrockuptibles is a French cultural magazine. Started as a monthly magazine in 1986, it became weekly in 1995. The name is a play on "Les Incorruptibles", the French title of the American television series The Untouchables...
, and by Bernard Lenoir
Bernard Lenoir
Bernard Lenoir is a radio personality, specializing in independent rock. His program, directed by Michelle Soulier, is broadcast in the evenings on France Inter....
, the 'John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
' of France. Furthermore, his song, Le Courage des oiseaux, (the Courage of the Birds), was an underground hit.
From 1992 onwards, he started to produce more and more live shows, either with a backing band, or solo. His commercial success grew in 1995, with Le twenty-two bar, a single off the album, La Mémoire Neuve, but this success left a bitter taste in Dominique's mouth, as he considered the song to be particularly badly written.
In 2000, he composed the score for Antoine Desrosières' black comedy film Banqueroute.
Le Détour and beyond (2002–)
Dominique's discovery of Alain BashungAlain Bashung
Alain Bashung was a French singer, songwriter and actor.- Youth :Alain Bashung was the son of a Breton factory worker and French Kabyle father, whom he never knew. His mother remarried, and at the age of one, Bashung was sent to Strasbourg to live with his new stepfather's parents...
's dark 2002 album, L'Imprudence shocked him to the point that it put his music into question and he decided to explore differents ways of working. He decided to compile what he considered to be the first part of a musical time capsule, a longbox
Longbox
A longbox is a form of exterior paperboard packaging for musical compact discs in widespread use in the 1980s and early 1990s in North America.- Background :...
entitled Le Détour. He asked his fans to write about their relationship with his music, and some of their letters were published in the booklet accompanying Le Détour.
For his subsequent album, he wanted to experiment and consequently, for the first time, he gave control over the album to a third party, the team who produced L'Imprudence. The end result would be Tout sera comme avant (Everything will be like it was before), which was released in 2004. Unfortunately, many fans had difficulty trying to buy it. At the same time, Dominique did a lot of live shows, with diverse arrangements: with a big band, with minimalistic backing, or all alone (where he would experiment with oversampling
Oversampling
In signal processing, oversampling is the process of sampling a signal with a sampling frequency significantly higher than twice the bandwidth or highest frequency of the signal being sampled...
).
In March 2006, L'Horizon came out, a new work that he produced alongside Dominique Brusson, with whom he had made the early album, Remué. It was the first time that Dominique A returned to work with a producer. He was backed by his old collaborators, Sacha Toorop and Olivier Mellano, as well as the musicians with whom he produced Tout sera comme avant. Dominique A had recently quit his record label, Labels, due to his desire for more creative freedom; consequently, it is no surprise that he describes L'Horizon as his most experimental work to date.
Collaboration and influence
Dominique A collaborates regularly with other artists and on other projects. He has been one of the shaping forces of Françoiz Breut's career, writing many of her songs since her début in 1997. He has also composed several songs for Jeanne BalibarJeanne Balibar
Jeanne Balibar is a French actress and singer.She was born in Paris. She began her acting career on the stage, in "Don Juan" at the Festival d'Avignon. Her first film role was in Arnaud Desplechin's 1992 film The Sentinel. She continues to perform in both spheres.Recently she starred in Ne Change...
's second album, Slalom Dale and wrote Où est la ville ? for Jane Birkin
Jane Birkin
Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE is an English-born actress and singer who lives in France. In recent years she has written her own album, directed a film and become an outspoken proponent of democracy in Burma.- Early life :...
's 2006 album, Fictions. He has also sang the song Veruca Salt et Frank Black in trio with Keren Ann
Keren Ann
Keren Ann Zeidel is a singer-songwriter-composer-producer and engineer based largely in Paris, Tel Aviv and New York City. She plays guitar, piano and clarinet, engineers and writes choir and musical arrangements.-Life and career:...
and Vincent Delerm
Vincent Delerm
Vincent Delerm is a French singer-songwriter, pianist and composer. He is the son of the writer Philippe Delerm....
on the latter's second album, Kensington Square.
Dominique A has inspired and influenced many artists. He has influenced many instrumentalist artists, such as Yann Tiersen
Yann Tiersen
Yann Tiersen is a musician from France. His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and film soundtracks with a distinctive sound that is always involved...
and the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
electro
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
band, Oslo Telescopic, who named one of their albums The Dominique O Project. Lyrically, his movement away from the constraints of chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
moved many others- including Miossec
Miossec
Christophe Miossec is a Breton singer and songwriter born in Brest, Brittany, France on December 24, 1964.-Beginnings:Christophe Miossec was not new to the world of music when he met his first great success. Between 14 and 17, he was in a teenage band, Printemps Noir , touring around Brest...
, Holden and Arman Méliès – by showing them that it was possible to make music that reflected their tastes and feelings using French.
Studio Albums
- Le disque sourd (1991)
- La Fossette (1992, Lithium)
- Si Je Connais Harry (1993, Lithium)
- La Mémoire Neuve (1995, Lithium)
- Remué (1999, Lithium)
- Auguri (2001, Labels)
- Tout Sera Comme Avant (2004, Labels)
- L'Horizon (2006, Olympic Disk)
- Sur nos forces motrices (2007, Olympic Disk)
- La Musique (2009)
External links
- Official site (in French)
- Discography (in French)
- Biography from Radio France InternationaleRadio France InternationaleRadio France Internationale was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial , Paris Mondial , Radio Paris , RTF Radio Paris and ORTF Radio Paris...
(in English) - The Unofficial site : news, interview... (in French)
- A page about Dominique A from Lithium & Labels, his former labels (in French)
- Olympic Disk, his current label (in French)
- Review on 'La Musique' (2009)
- L'horizon, crítica en la Revista Lenguas de Fuego (en Español)
- Concert photos by Laurent Orseau (Black Session)