“Took A Long Time” by Carla dal Forno

Each stage of Carla dal Forno’s journey from Melbourne’s experimental electronic pop underground via Berlin to London has been matched with an increasing sophistication of her DIY dream-pop electronica.  “Took a Long Time” is the second song shared from dal Forno’s second album – “Look Up Sharp” – ahead of its October release.

On the basis of the two songs from “Look Up Sharp” shared so far, the new album strips even more of the lo-fi atmospheric haze from dal Forno’s sound while still maintaining an edge of detached unease.

“Took A Long Time” finds dal Forno sounding like a atmospheric stand-off between the fidgety crystalline minimalism of Melbourne dub electronica outfit HTRK and the uneasy post-punk electronic dream-pop of Dunedin’s Death and the Maiden.  

“Look Up Sharp” will be released on LP and CD (as well as digital download) on dal Forno’s own label Kallista Records on 4 October 2019.

“We Shouldn’t Have to Wait” by Carla Dal Forno

First PopLib post for 2018 or last post for 2017 – depending on where in the world you are at this moment – is “We Shouldn’t Have to Wait”, the opening track from Carla Dal Forno‘s October 2017 EP “The Garden”.

Dal Forno’s 2016 debut album “You Know What It’s Like” was on many ‘best of 2016’ lists. But somehow it avoided the PopLib radar until late on 31 December 2017. It’s wonderful, but the subsequent EP this track is from is even better. The album was a grand exploration of psychedelic folk built around minimal lo-fi experimental electronic sounds, the EP is more focused and a kind of minimal electronic pop – slow, moody, damaged, melancholic.

What struck me on first listen to the EP was it was the first thing I’ve heard to remind me of local sonic explorers Death And The Maiden. The Dunedin trio also take an oblique approach to decelerated melancholic minimal post-punk slow-dance music, with lyrics that dwell on the dislocation of life and existence.

As with the EP, a refreshing feature here is how Dal Forno’s DIY approach to experimental electronic music creation is turned to approachable pop-craft ends. So weird industrial noises and distorted deconstructed wave-forms are incorporated into song arrangements in musical ways that they are in service to the melody and rhythm and the song itself.

Here’s the 2016 album to explore too.