Domino theory

Subtle songstress Anna Domino returns "home"

by CHRIS YURKIW

When Anna Domino left the Ottawa that was her adolescent home, she left for good. Of course, she was just Anne Taylor back in 1975, a kid getting out of high school and suburbia in the same shot, being dragged around the world by an itinerant mother who had given her birth in Japan, a childhood in Florence, and finally some turbulent high-school years in the second coldest capital city on the planet.

"I think I'm one of those people who just isn't at home," says Domino from her loft in New York, her base since the late '70s. "Because I moved around a lot as a kid there isn't any place that I can really go back to. This is a place that I've landed in, and it's as at-home as it's ever going to be."

But even after she had fallen in love with New York, Europe and Crépuscule called. Her career was launched from Belgium in 1983 with a single called "Trust In Love," followed by the EP East And West, then a self-titled album in '86. They begged a bigger audience, but over the years in Crépuscule's "willingly negligent world," as one British weekly called it, Domino became best known for who she should have been: the next Sade, the next Suzanne Vega, the next Julee Cruise...

Still, if Anna Domino is the great lost '80s songstress, she still has an active career that's gearing up for phase two. After an imposed break since 1990's Mysteries Of America, as Crépuscule slowly dissolved, Domino came back late last year with a gorgeous collection of her hits, or rather, Favorite Songs from the Twilight Years: 1984-1990. The retrospective was released by Cargo's Janken Pon label, and Domino credits local imprint boss Kevin Komoda with kickstarting the project. She's also got an album of new material ready to go, and then there's her new band Snakefarm--essentially her same electroacoustic aesthetic applied to "traditional North American songs of murder, trains and she-won't-sleep-with-you-so-you-beat-her-up-and-throw-her-in-the-river."

Canada is getting Domino going again. She will perform in this country for the first time this week. "It feels so strange to be going up there to play now," says Anna. "I'm so happy about it, but at the same it seems like it should have happened a decade ago."

Anna Domino performs solo at the Harem Lounge tonight, Thursday, March 27. 9 pm. $6. 22 St-Paul E., 393-1969