ANNA DOMINO

“The half of me would sell my soul.... all the rest says wait...control...”

Anna Domino (born Anna Virginia Taylor) is a singer, a composer, a musician, a minimalist poetess, a performer of the minimal rock and synth-pop which flow down jazz music for a while.

She was born in Tokyo, from a turbulent mother who dragged her around the world. She spent her childhood between Florence and Canada, then settled in New York, where she started her career as a musician and singer, with the Polyrock, a representative group of the minimal rock, moving their first steps at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s, whose first album was recorded with Philip Glass producing. Anna's itinerant past goes a long way towards explaining her cosmopolitan musical style.

“I think I'm one of those people who just isn't at home. Because I moved around a lot as a kid there isn't any place that I can really go back to.”

Smart and beautifully enchanting she comes back to Europe in the early 80s and in 1984 she records in Belgium her first mini album, East & West, by the independent brand Les Disques du Crepuscule, a lave particularly interested in the avant-guard music.  The record radiated an atmosphere of loss, longing and detachment, Anna's sensual vocal style adding further to its bewitching quality. It was the period of the Tuxedomoon and the beginnings of Wim Mertens. Personally, this is my preferred album with bittersweet lullabies, stepped in late-night melancholy; to remark the song Everyday I don't.

From 1984 onwards Anna spends half of the year in New York and the other half in Brussels and in 1986 appears her first proper album, Anna Domino (Les Disques Du Crepuscule, 1986 – LTM, 2004) with the singles Rythm (the misspelling was deliberate) and Take that.
These songs, as well as My Man or Koo Koo, are simple jazz lullabies and Anna's voice well combines with swing atmosphere from years '30s. Despite a first impression Anna's records are far from being just 'pop'. The words of her lyrics are charged with fragility, resentment, self doubt, sometimes even chaos, and often take our hand only to lead us towards the dark end of the street. This is without doubts Anna's most interesting period, with two albums which I consider two milestones of the synth pop (term used at the time for indicating a more electronic pop), to be re-discovered even nowadays.

In 1987 Anna joins (in music and in life) the Belgian multi-instrumentalist Michael Delory, and together they work on Anna's second album, This Time (Crepuscule, 1987 – LTM, 2004). The album was less groove-orientated and offered stronger songs delivered in a variety of styles, showing Anna's will to cross alternatives ways, just for experimenting new kinds of music.
To remark the track Rain, with oriental arrangements leading us into a rainy Japanese garden.
The following  mini album Coloring in the edge and the outline (Giant, 1990) show a stronger influence from her companion.

In 1990 Domino and Delory relocate to New York and return with a new album, Mysteries of America (1990 – LTM, 2004), containing nine new songs produced by Anton Sanko, best known for his work with Suzanne Vega, and exploring acoustic settings in greater depth than on previous records. To mention Pandora, a dreamy and druggy lullaby, with the percussions of Frank Vilardi, or the beautiful and gitan Tamper with me. The words of these lyrics testify a strong interior tumult:
“I wish you were here in this afternoon, under a sulphur and stiffing sky, until stones and tumble will light this room and the storm, finally, will burst into my eyes...” or “I can be cruel and gentle, depending on my mood”.... or yet “...you'll never know how fun I would have, should you see me when I'm really mad...”
You can feel an almost split personality, an obsession and craziness which can explode any moment, but always with the desire of being observed, followed, in a sort of mental voyeurism, the wish of taking the lid o, and the need of cover it again.

Unfortunately Mysteries of America will be the last album of the couple Domino Delory. Even if it is difficult to understand and appreciate such a cosmopolitan artist with a unique album, the compilation Favorite Songs form the Twilight can be of help  (Cartunes, 1997). Interesting is also Dreamback – the best of, of 2004, including the beautiful Zanna, a lyric at 2 voices with Luc Van Acker, of 1989. The same track was also included in the compilation L'amour fou, of 1991, realized only for the Japanese market.

She lastly appears as vocalist in the album Songs from my funeral (1999), released under the name Snakefarm (accompanied by three musicians), with melodic traditional songs.

Nowadays the couple Domino/Delory still live in Los Angeles.

By Leonardo Cecconi (translation from the Italian by Simona Cappellini)