Camille launched into Aussie consciousness in 2006 with the single Ta Doleur from her 2005 release Le Fil. Triple J listeners voted Ta Doleur number twenty-six in the Hottest 100 that year, a notable achievement for a foreign language song. Le Fil also earned Camille accolades in her own country and in 2005 she won the French Mercury Prize-equivalent, the Le Victoire.
Despite her mainstream success, Camille consistently incorporates an experimental edge into her music. Le Fil was based around a single droning note that played unbroken through the entire album. “I wanted to use a drone for myself, on an intimate level,” she says. “Like what’s your drone, what’s your pitch, what’s your tuning, you know. I needed to tune myself to myself. So I started with a single note and I then built my songs around it… I needed something very bare and very simple to start with”.
Her latest release, 2008’s Music Hole, is a similarly thoughtful record that furthers Camille’s foray into a cappella that began with Le Fil. “I’ve always used my voice… at the start I used it more like a traditional singer, you sing on top of an arrangement and then I thought well I can be on the bottom of it too, I can do it all with my voice. I can arrange my songs, I can beatbox and so I started to do it.”
Camille’s embrace of a cappella pop has been labeled a brave move by some reviewers who perceive the style as a risk. Camille considers it differently however. “I think a cappella work is experimental because its all about voice and voice is very unique… it’s all over the world and a cappella works have always existed and it’s something very human and very universal at the same time so it’s experimental but it’s universal. I think it’s quite accessible. Anyone can sing.”
After Le Fil (which was sung predominantly in French) she felt it was time to switch to English – a language she has spoken from an early age owing to her mother being an English teacher. “I had already started with [French band] Nouvelle Vague but they were only covers. Now I felt ready to write my own songs in English and try to explore that language too. I would like to explore as many languages as I can musically because it’s so rich.”
Camille also has a solid grasp on Spanish making her language skills quite formidable. “I think if I lived there I could speak fluently but I speak a little. I like to speak Spanish. But you can sing in languages that you don’t really speak. You can play with sounds without really mastering the language. I like to sing in other languages that I don’t speak.”
Those getting along to see Camille in Melbourne, Brisbane or as part of this year’s Sydney Festival are in for a display of serious vocal versatility.
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