Dillon © Siggi Eggertsson
Dillon
The 25-year-old singer and artist Dominique Dillon de Byington was born in 1988 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and moved to Cologne at the age of five, where she grew up. At the age of 17 Dillon’s first self-composed pieces arose in front of her camera at the parents’ piano and without any calculus or system, began to spread via YouTube and Myspace. At the age of 18 she moved to Berlin and one of her first songs, “The Rate Of Yesterday”, attracted the attention of the Berlin-based indie label Kitty-Yo which released her first digital single “C Unseen Sea” in 2008. Followed by the three tracks EP “Ludwig” on Combination Record, Dillon began exposing her draft of lo-fi pop combining hip-hop elements as well as minor electronic elements.
Not only DJ Koze certified Dillon a hopeful future, the band Tocotronic invited her as their support for their “Schall & Wahn” tour in 2010. The song “Aiming For Destruction” with the Cologne-based duo Coma was produced a little later that year and released by Ellen Alien on the BPitch Werkschau compilation in 2011. In the same year Dillon published her debut “This Silence Kills”. A collection of some of her previously written songs. Produced with Thies Mynther and Tamer Fahri Özgöenec, they created an unvarnished picture of an artist who earned great approval through both the indie scene, as well as the feuilleton. Dillon’s piano playing creates a breeding for her unique songs about the pitfalls of everyday life and the trials and tribulations of human existence. With her distinctive voice, the cold bass and a minimalist techno approach her debut was positioned between the chairs of chanson pop and fragile electronica.
After successful tours in Germany and appearances at Melt!, Dockville, New Fall and Berlin Festival to name a few, in spring 2013 Dillon began working on her second album: “The Unknown” not only pursues the path of “This Silence Kills”, but once again introduces an artist who, with a unique sense for emotional songwriting, is one of the most interesting and imposing storytellers. For Dillon, genre boundaries are waste paper. Whether it's jazz, piano-pop or miniature electro – for Dillon not only the atmosphere but words and feelings stand in the foreground. It must come from the heart.
As of May 2015