Anna Domino is an American singer who relocated to Brussels in the eighties. She has an incredibly cool, low, sexy voice that was once described as the voice of the erotic, tense, despairing, thinking woman: Peggy Lee-meets-Nico.
She was part of the exploding Brussels music scene of the romantic antique-overcoat cold-war era that began with Joy Division and ended when the wall came down. It was this time when quite a lot of “immigrants” from the States and England contributed to an exciting, experimental musical climate in Brussels especially. Blaine L. Reininger, Tuxedomoon, the Legendary Pink Dots, Isabelle Antena, Paul Haig are among those who made the voyage over. Many of these recorded for the immortal and legendary independent record label Les Disques du Crépuscule – or Operation Twilight Records, under which alternate name some related records were issued. She also did a number of guest-appearances on album of others, such as on “Temperamental” by Kid Montana (another half Belgian/half American affair), aka Dudley Klute, now famous for his guest appearance on the Magnetic Fields Sixty-Nine Love Songs box. Crepuscule’s output is prized by most collectors, including myself, and much of it has been either reissued directly or repackaged for anthology reissue by LTM.
Though she disappeared slowly from the public eye in Belgium, Anna Domino has continued to record and publish her songs ever since. She has worked with Alan Rankine (The Associates), Marc Moulin & Dan Lacksman (Telex), Flood (Depeche Mode, Erasure), Blaine L. Reiniger (Tuxedomoon) and Anton Sanko (Suzanne Vega).
In 1999, Anna resurfaced as Snakefarm with the CD “Songs From My Funeral”, a project that has been described as “Acid-blues? Folk-funk? Troubadour trip-hop?” by the American music-press. Together with her Belgian husband Michel Delory she recorded a number of old American folk songs or “murder ballads”, and thanks to Nick Cave for bringing the term into vogue, such as “John Henry”, “Saint James Infirmary”, and “Tom Dooley”, albeit with a more modern bent.
Anna is remembered in various circles for different songs. In my own circle, the one song that is uniquely hers is “88”. It’s from her third album, “Coloring in The Edge and The Outline”, and it completely sums up that heady era in one burst of song. Anyway, I needed cheering up today, and this song always works. You can click below to hear it, and get cheered up right along with me.
[audio:http://www.paulcollegio.net/juke/juke0412/bunny00a.mp3]
