Dillon
Ludwig EP
7"
CORE 058
05/2008
Hans Nieswandt (Whirlpool Productions):
"Due to several beneficial circumstances I had the chance to witness the first real live gig of a spectacular young artist from up close. I was manning the record players and she stood in front of them, just blowing all of us away. When I started playing directly after her number – together with Cheryl Lynn and Toto’s Georgie Porgie – my first spontaneous thought was: “Maybe I just saw the Madonna of the next decade.”With this gig Dillon proved that she possesses character, courage, and nerve. It was obvious that she was still really young, barely 18. Yet, to walk on that stage all alone (very serious and focussed but with a lot of attitude) with her set of self-written songs, a keyboard, and a Powerbook and to let it rip with so much nuance in a range of sensitive, heartfelt piano songs and roaring all-out elektro – wow! What a nice little hurricane that ran over everybody at the Melt-Festival. If it is true that the essence of pop is to watch people believe in what they do, than Dillon was giving a particularly good example that night.A mutual acquaintance of both of us, someone who saw the show with me, later told me a few interesting details about her. For example that she answers to the name Dominique Dillon de Byington and that she lives in Cologne. Well, the latter fact has changed in the meantime (to Berlin – surprise!), but apparently moving places doesn’t come as a first for Dillon: She was born at the end of the 90s in Brazil. At the tender age of four her mum took her on a skiing trip to Kitzbühel in the Austrian Alps. A vacation that was continued in Cologne and basically still goes on today.In a musical sense, Dillon has never fallen victim to the usual kind of parental obsessions along the lines of “My kid has to be child prodigy”, like piano drills and voice training. Actually, she only discovered that playing the piano isn’t much trouble for her, that she possesses a fair range of voice between whispering and shouting and that it is obviously her thing to turn her thoughts into lyrics on a bleak afternoon about a year before her appearance at the Melt Festival. Preferring to pull her own girlish weight, instead of being the face for another daft band, having herself ordered about in a whacked casting show or simply continuing grade-grubbing at school, she came up with her own tiny repertoire and set-up. In doing so she has demonstrated herself and all of the kids out there that to find your own thing and to just do it is a lot cooler than all of the above (and her A-levels have worked out, too).After an online EP on Kitty-Yo, Combination Records now releases three new songs by Dillon in a timeless classical pop format which I find ideally suited for her: as 7-inch single. “Ausgabe 11”, “Contact Us” and “On Repeat” present the spectrum of her possibilities: It has this sensitive cheekiness, it has this aggressive vulnerability, it has the adrenalin beats for kids, and it has some dramatic chords – a great package. And that’s only the beginning. Because as I mentioned before, we are currently witnessing a rising star…"
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