- She isn't the first artist to weave together elements of pop, folk and electronica, but on her 2011 debut, This Silence Kills, Berlin-based Brazilian Dominique Dillon De Byington did so with convincing style. Like something from an electronic Joanna Newsom, her music had a fantastical, nursery rhyme quality, to which her vocals (by turns winsomely girlish and achingly sad) were well-suited. One track on that album, the rippling "Abrupt Clarity," teased listeners with the possibility that Dillon might start dropping leftfield dance floor bombs.
That was not to be. Dillon's latest album, The Unknown, retreats further into box-bedroom loneliness in a way that feels rather formulaic. On This Silence Kills, she sounded like a songwriter newly liberated by the textural and compositional possibilities of electronic music. Here, her engagement sounds more deliberate and less fun. Dour, piano-led ballads such as "A Matter Of Time," "4Ever" and "You Cover Me" define the feel of the album. They play out against a backdrop of quirky electronic detail (brooding bass pads, sluggish drums, medieval choirs) that feels like an afterthought rather than part of the songs' natural evolution. Consequently, those two strands of Dillon's sound rarely coalesce here to produce anything compelling.
Dillon hasn't lost her ability to write an insidious melody or tug at your heart strings, though, and when she gets a little more creative with her arrangements, The Unknown sparks to life. The melancholy "Evergreen" is shot through with the chattering instability of early New Order, while on the tremulous "Don't Go" Dillon's tricksy vocal is the star at the centre of a sparkling constellation of piano, asthmatic percussion, footwork rhythms and tumbling arps. In such moments, you can hear what might have been, and what is hopefully still to come.
Tracklist01. The Unknown
02. A Matter Of Time
03. You Cover Me
04. Forward
05. In Silence
06. 4Ever
07. Evergreen
08. Into The Deep
09. Don't Go
10. Lightning Sparked
11. Nowhere
12. Currents Change