This lo-fi, darkly minimalist but also oddly candid fourth LP by the Australian, Castlemaine-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist centres on the conflicted, obsessive feelings about “a friendship that became emotionally charged in an unexpected way”, and “an album about closeness that arrives late and unexpectedly. About stability rubbing up against desire.” Dal Forno is a quietly assertive, enormously independent introvert in person and her work, happily creating music in her studio alone and playing all the instruments herself, so this is a bravely revealing album, presumably about an imagined affair away from her homelife with longtime partner, with whom she runs her own label, and has a child. Opener Going Out, with a gently thrumming, downbeat bassline and woodwind and string sound backing, and her soft, matter-of-fact delivery, sets up the quiet drama with an understated determination: “You're going out with someone that I used to know / Yeah, you're going out with a friend / I've tried in vain to hide, I know it's wrong but I can't deny it / I have these thoughts that don't end / Shouldn't want to kiss you but I do / Shouldn't want to touch you but I miss you all the time / Shouldn't want to hold you but I do / Shouldn't want to stay so close but I've made up my mind / You will belong to me soon / You will belong to me, there's no other way.”
The title track adds more to this, with a stripped back, low-key dub-style pop;: “I have a small confession, I think about you most of the day / What you might be doing, who you’re with and what you might say.” Under The Covers, meanwhile, with a slow beat and another bassline and stripped back synth lines, hovers over a tricky homelife of patience and comfortable tedium: “And whеn I'm bored, you take my hand / And you say "Sweetheart you know I undеrstand" … Now, most every day/ I watch you shower, get dressed and maybe shave / It's so routine, and that's what works/ Sometimes the dryer will eat one of your shirts / And we both know that we're in luck / 'Cause not much changes and that's what we both want.”
Nighttime plods potently too, but with fantasy ideas about letting the person in question through the back door. It’s a strangely beguiling record, full of minimalism and suppression but also bubbling-under feelings, presumably all leading to no actual affair, despite the teasing gentle electro-pop of Alone With You. It seems all over with the penultimate, dreamy, wistful track Gave You Up, but also dotted with handful instrumental tracks, including the final one, Staying In, with the indistinct sound of rain and objects being moved, but all o which confer the idea of time and life going on, feelings repressed with nothing changing, an inner dialogue and emotional journey exposed in sound. Fascinatingly stubborn, minimalist, and yet also oddly cathartic. Out on Kallista Records.
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