Tag: Carla dal Forno

New Video: Carla dal Forno Shares Hazy and Dreamy “Come Around”

Over the better part of the past decade or so of moving, writing, recording and touring out of Berlin and London, singer/songwriter, musician and Kallista Records label head Carla dal Forno relocated to Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia, where she wrote and recorded her third album Come Around.

Slated for November 4, 2022 release through her own Kallista Records, Come Around reportedly sees dal Forno grappling with ideas of home, disorder and insomnia with self-assured, enlightened songwriting and pop hooks.

Come Around‘s first single, album title track “Come Around” is a narcoleptic, meandering, dub-like take on indie pop featuring reverb and delay-drenched guitar and drums paired with dal Forno’s inviting, easy-going delivery. Centered around a seemingly effortless melodic simplistic and an unerring knack for a well-placed, infectious hook, “Come Around” feels like an open-ended invitation to stop by and stay awhile, to make yourself at home . . .

“’Come Around’ was inspired by a guy I used to play in a band with,” dal Forno explains. “I really admired the way he played guitar. He had this laid back strum that was effortless and cool. I was mucking around at home one day trying to imitate the way he played and I wrote ‘Come Around.’” Further adding: ”I wrote the song during a carefree springtime and I loved working on it while recording this album. There’s a lightness and openness to it, which I feel quite liberated by. It reminds me of a life I once had with very few responsibilities.”

The accompanying video by Ludovic Sauvage is red-hued — and despite dal Forno’s clothing, evokes lazy, hazy summer afternoons of daydreaming and hanging out without a particular plan.

Initially began as the solo recording project of Seattle-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Natasha El-Sergany that focused on spectral balladry and late-night exploration, the Seattle-based shoegazer project Somesurprises has gradually expanded into a full-fledged band featuring Josh Medina (guitar, synth), Laura Seniow (bass) and Nico Sophiea (drums) since the release of the project’s 2016 debut effort Voice Memos

2017 found El-Sergany collaborating with Josh Medina for the ambient album Serious Dreams, an effort that was released to critical applause from the likes of The Quietus, Bandcamp, The StrangerSeattle Weekly and Tiny Mixtapes. The following year, the project expanded to a full band with the addition of MX-80 Sound’s Nico Sophiea aend Red Ribbon‘s Emma Danner (bass) for that year’s Alt, an effort that Aquarium Drunkard compared to “an imaginary collaboration between Grouper and Spiritualized.” Interestingly, the band started off this year with a collaborative split tape with fellow Seattle-based act Supercandy, some candy that featured contributions from Brenan Chambers, Lori Goldston, Monika Khott and Ambrosia Bardos, who added layers of guitar effects, cello, vocals and trumpet.

The band has built up a strong profile in their hometown, opening for the likes of Circuit Des Yeux, Carla dal Forno, A Place to Bury Strangers and The Cave Singers — and they’ve toured the West Coast. Building upon a growing profile, the band will be releasing their self-titled full-length debut through Drawing Room Records. Slated for a September 20, 2019 release, the Seattle-based sheogazers self-title full-length finds the band exploring a wide range of styles from intensifying meditative drones to songs, where the same moment never quite happens twice. And unlike their previously released material, the vocals and lyrics are much more focused — with the material thematically longing for and seeking knowledge of the self, to guide the way out of one’s own mind.
Clocking in a little over five minutes, “High Rise,” the latest single off the Seattle-based shoegazers forthcoming full-length, self-titled  album is an expansive and shapeshifting song that begins with a pensive and slow-burning, shimmering intro that slowly builds up into an explosive power chord and motorik groove driven middle section. The song then closes out with a pensive and slow-burning, shimmering coda to close off a mind-bending and expansive song that sounds like the perfect accompaniment to experimenting with hallucinogens.