B-Side Guys

Dominique Fils-Aimé collapses the boundary between body and landscape on “The River,” treating water as both external force and internal system. “Let the rivers flow down my veins / Let the river slow down my pain” opens the track by making Mother Nature anatomical rather than metaphorical, which the JUNO-award winning Montreal vocalist delivers with the kind of breathtaking precision that NPR called “absolutely incredible.” The song is the latest preview of My World Is The Sun, out February 20 via Ensoul Records—the second installment in a trilogy she began with Our Roots Run Deep (2023). Fils-Aimé draws from soul icons like Billie Holiday and Nina Simone while creating what the New Yorker described as “eclectic and unexpected” interpretations that transcend her jazz and soul foundations.

What Is “The River” About?

Fils-Aimé frames the river as a meeting place for collective healing: “Meet me by the river / Come let’s heal together / Let’s belong.” The repetition of “let’s belong” throughout the track treats belonging not as a given condition but as an active choice, something negotiated through proximity to water and each other. The fires burning inside her head and rivers flowing down her veins establish internal chaos that the river—external, constant—offers to temper. “May the tide be high” functions as a prayer or permission, acknowledging that healing requires conditions beyond individual control.

The bridge shifts perspective entirely: “All you need to know / All the love on this earth / Was meant for you.” Fils-Aimé repeats this affirmation eight times, each iteration stripping away more words until only “The river / Together / The river / Meet me / By / The River” remains. The dissolving structure mirrors the song’s central thesis—that communion with nature and each other requires letting language itself flow away. For an artist committed to “freedom, creativity, and spiritual dimensions,” “The River” documents the process of achieving those states by surrendering control to elemental forces larger than syntax or self.

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For more looks at nature as a force and metaphor, check out Rolling Boxcar International’s “Buffalo”.