Dreamback - The Best of Anna Domino

An earlier collection of Anna Domino's work, Favorite Songs From the Twilight Years, surfaced in Canada in 1996, but Dreamback takes the one otherwise unavailable song from there — the twangy "Dreamback" itself — to be the penultimate song on this new overview from the LTM label. Released as an adjunct to the label's re-releasing of her '80s and early '90s work in general, Dreamback won't otherwise provide anything new for fans who have said re-releases. Relative obscurities like "Zanna," a collaboration with Luc Van Acker that balances off his deeper vocals and a subdued but strong rhythm with her calmer touch, and the low-key guitar jangle/funk strength of "Hammer" had already turned up on the other CDs. But as a handy overview for people new to Domino's work in general, Dreamback fulfills its brief and then some — after listening, it's almost incredulous to think that she didn't gain wider attention at the time. Domino's balance between cool vocal control and a sudden, almost nervous energy in her delivery makes for a strong tension that feeds into the songs as well, similarly balancing between state of the art dance/art rock circa the '80s and moodier undercurrents — plenty of bossa nova touches and interpretations, buried, dissonant horn/synth bursts, choruses that come across as sedated gang shouts, the pan-pipe/keyboard rural idyll of "Lake." There's the sass and swing of early singles like "'Rythm'" and "Summer," the collage of percussion that slowly builds up on "Caught," the flat-out lovely "Bonds of Love," with a simple killer blend of guitar and keyboards that leads into a breathtaking chorus. Perhaps the truly hidden gem that reemerges here is "88," originally from 1988's Colouring in the Edge and coming across as her commanding take on U2 circa The Joshua Tree — all of the surging power but none of the vocal histrionics. A reproduction of James Nice's biography of Domino is a fine inclusion in the liner notes.