Carla dal Forno
Come Around
KALLISTA
Carla dal Forno is a singer and multi-instrumentalist based out of the Australian township and old gold rush boomtown of Castlemaine. She’s wandered to a new home with each new release, so it’s no surprise her music tends to be equally exploratory, its pace always more moonlit stroll than strenuous morning jog. The minimal songwriter started her career in Melbourne playing with lo-fi punks in between studying for a fine arts degree. Her 2016 debut album You Know What It’s Like was mostly slept on, and she self-released her 2019 follow-up Look Up Sharp. Dal Forno returns to self-publishing on Kallista Records with Come Around, a cluster of nine nocturnal vapors released with the stark atmosphere of a folk-horror film.
The closest contemporary analogs to her sound are something of a rich brew of the mesmeric outsider rock created by Cate Le Bon and Chromatics vocalist Ruth Radelet’s appetite for the slinkier side of electronic music. Those comparisons feel like ordinary reductions of her distinct and evolving work so far, though, with the airy title track on her third album serving as one of the best realizations of the style she’s congealed so far. Other beat-driven tracks (“Mind You’re On” and a cover of The United States of America’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights'”) plop her out of the mire of minimalism and allow her pliant soprano to take the listener by the hand. Her vocals are notably haunting as she sometimes elides the consonants at the end of her lyrics as if she’s drifting off into the darkness of Castlemaine’s beautiful botanical gardens.
The themes on Come Around contend with the natural parts of our lives that can be hard to escape, such as the anticipation of sex (“Side by Side”) and bouts of sleepless anxiety (instrumentals “Deep Sleep” and “Autumn”). A self-described insomniac, Dal Forno recently recounted that she’s had plenty of long nights after the birth of her daughter during Australia’s lockdown. The crawling, midnight dread of “Stay Awake” is a highlight on this topic with its interplay between prominent bass and a chiming, eerie electronic production.
An amble through a garden at midnight with head aloft seems like the perfect way to listen to Come Around. It’s a waxing and waning album that fits her moonlit style. It’s also her best effort yet. Follow the moon and the music will guide you. Carla dal Forno will probably still be up in case you get lost.
