Dominique - “If Ever I Fall (Away With You)”
Today, Look At My Records! is excited to premiere the video for “If Ever I Fall (Away With You),” by Dominique. The Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary artist (whose full name is Dominique Matelson) caught our attention as the vocal foil to Nick Flessa in Dayton Swim Club, a dark, desert-psych-tinged post-punk ensemble that thrives off of their spell-binding interplay. Dominque’s solo material is equally compelling but in a different manner. Her compositions are highly experimental, weaving together layers of both soothing and jarring sounds that push forward her stream of conscious lyrics and gorgeously malleable voice.
On “If Ever I Fall (Away With You),” Dominique injects a bit more lightness into the mix when compared to the songs on her debut, Peacemaker, while continuing to keep the focus on her experimental, sing-speak vocal stylings. It’s an airier track that rests on more scaled-back synths and percussion in its introductory phases but sonically swells and grows as things progress. Starting out with a Gregorian-like sounding chant, Matelson then begins to describe an obsessive fascination with clocks, specifically, their inner workings, the mechanisms behind their functioning, and the desire to control time. The track climaxes with Dominique stacking several vocal parts in a way that makes it seem like she’s talking to herself (or within her own mind), as she recounts the colors of digital clocks and the movement of the hands of a grandfather clock against a steady, clean sounding bassline.
The video, which was directed and edited by Sarah Rattay-Maloney, captures multiple shots of Dominique superimposed upon a variety of time and clock-related items. That motif also works its way into to fold in some less apparent ways, for instance, when a close-up of Dominique’s head starts slowly spinning, mimicking the slow crawl of the passage of time.
Dominique shared the following about the inspiration behind the song and video:
Ever I Fall (Away With You) was written deep in the pandemic, deep in isolation, when the concept of time was finally not disguising itself as real anymore. I felt like I was existing in a new dimension, where there was not one way to measure the passing of time in any numerical sense. As I was feeling this, I became enamored with the clock as a device and structure on its own, disregarding its function. I was obsessed with reading about them, about horology and about the earliest known methods of measuring time. All of the research and curiosity reminded me of how I typically get with lovers, absorbed— but this was quarantine and I was alone. I felt as though I had actually fallen in love with clocks, so I put them on a pedestal, wrote about them, re-creating the device as something to fall in love with and figure out, like a person. It all felt synonymous to the pattern seen in relationships of someone trying to control the other person in hopes to achieving some control of themselves— a funny parallel, I believe, to the way many people feel toward time.
Stream the video below!
“If Ever I Fall (Away With You)” will appear on Dominique’s forthcoming album, The Instruction Manual, which is set for release on May 27th via Perpetual Doom. You can pre-order it on limited edition cassette via Bandcamp. Keep up with Dominique by following her on Instagram.
Photo by Ivanna Baranova.
