Vancouver Island artist, Zoe Guigueno, has just released the lead single, Queen Of My Domain, from her forthcoming third album (to be released on October 13 2022). We’ve been taking a few listens to this empowering and inspiring song here at the Send Me Your Ears studio.
Starting the song with a quick (and endearing) intake of breath, Queen Of My Domain leads instantly into vocals, backed by bass and drums. We love the way the voice is the first thing you hear on this track. It shows the confidence of the artist whilst confirming the very theme of the song.
The vocals are clear in the mix. They are warm and inviting and suitably breathy. There’s a real charm to Zoe’s voice – a level of quiet confidence exudes that suits the subject matter of the song.
As the song develops, more instruments are added and the drums take more of a role in the track. We like the very subtle use of hammond organ in the background which helps to fill out the sound and the incidental, Mark Knopfler-esque tone of the guitar riffs are absolutely beautiful.
We like how, despite the quality of the guitar incidentals, Zoe has chosen to use her voice as the solo instrument as the song closes out. This shows a great level of individuality, as do the slightly unpredictable chord sequences. Zoe Guigueno is very clearly a true-to-herself artist.
From a production perspective, a hi-pass filter at 35Hz would remove some low rumble and to our ears a wide boost centred around 8kHz would give some extra brightness and presence to the song, particularly the drum track which feels a little muted to us. We also felt that a little more stereo panning and effects would make the track really shine. This can be achieved with a single plug-in on the master. Most DAWs have a stereo spread plug-in of some kind. Care needs to be applied when panning low frequency channels though.
Queen of My Domain is a wonderfully unique indie folk/ singer-songwriter track that shines a light on women’s independence and true empowerment. Lyrically intelligent, vocally classy and with some glorious guitar work, this is a track that we strongly urge you to add to your playlist.