Carla dal Forno recorded her fourth album in a studio in a disused hospital in a remote Australian town of fewer than 8,000 people. Her last record, Come Around, documented her move there after years of traveling around the world’s music capitals as a moderately hyped post-punk musician. First, she was part of under-the-radar Australian bands like F ingers and Tarcar; she went solo with the bewitching, tight-lipped You Know What It’s Like, an album whose air of distance was its most seductive quality. Over the years, the camera and the mic have inched closer to dal Forno, and we’ve gotten to know her songwriting quirks in petty breakup songs and self-aware tales of conditional, temporary love. Confession, made over years of settling into her Castlemaine home and the upside-down lifestyle change it brought, sounds cozy and pastoral at first. It’s the most upbeat she’s ever sounded—until you pay close attention to the lyrics.
Confession is the work of a one-woman post-punk band, and it sounds like it, full of sprightly keyboards, buoyant basslines, tinny drums, and instruments that could be melodicas or accordions filling in the chilly spaces. The songs move with a springy step halfway between doo-wop and rocksteady; dal Forno carefully enunciates in the deadpan, slightly arch tone that has become her trademark. At first, opener “Going Out” sounds like a typical torch song yearning for an unavailable lover, but the bridge turns sour: “You will belong to me soon/There’s no other way.” By the next song, the title track, she’s admitted to thinking about this person 24/7, and later, on the squirrelly “Nighttime,” she sings, sweetly, “I’ve watched you move through the day/There’s no need to say where you have been.”
Dal Forno has said that her small town offered “a stillness my life previously didn’t have… feelings I might’ve ignored in a busy city grew loud”—specifically, emotions for a friend that turned romantic and then obsessive. Listening to Confession is like hearing someone’s inner monologue at its most deranged, eavesdropping on the rush of repetitive thoughts and false assumptions that might lead someone to send the wrong text message at the exact wrong time. But it rarely sounds sinister, because dal Forno is unfailingly chipper, especially on the jaunty “Blue Skies,” where she (briefly) decides she’s done with the object of her affection, concluding bitterly, “Like most people, you’ll never change.”
Confession is charged with the feeling that dal Forno might an unreliable narrator. The other half of the relationship never gets to speak, and even the sweetest songs have a tinge of spookiness. “Under the Covers” is one of the most moving tracks in her catalog, swaying with the rhythms of domestic bliss as she outlines a domestic relationship characterized by mutual understanding. She watches them shower in the morning, they reassure her constantly, and both are happy because nothing ever changes. It’s a beautiful snapshot, but it’s a little too perfect. Is she imagining that a friendship is something it’s not? Are these the fantasies of Annie Wilkes in Misery? Knowing the album’s backstory takes away some of the beauty of “Under the Covers,” but it also adds to the tension that makes Confession feel like the lurid diary of an emotional breakdown that you can’t tear yourself away from. Even the closing track “Alone With You,” which implies a happy end to the relationship, seems suspicious.
The vocal tracks are broken up by instrumental ditties whose cutesiness is almost creepier. Tales of stalking sit next to tracks like “On the Wand,” a glassy, digidub-inspired tune that channels the echoey corridors of the hospital it was recorded in, or “Off the Beaten Track,” whose bells and accordion make for a refreshing break from the paranoia elsewhere. These mundane moments help frame the album’s confessional air, reinforcing the idea that this is a real person writing songs based on real feelings: Who hasn’t had unhinged thoughts about someone they’re in love with and then gone about their day after the storm subsides, maybe done a little gardening or gone for a nice walk? The album’s turbulent flow reflects the rhythms of life in a small town where you have nothing but time, and the clarity of the songwriting makes Confession more than just the post-punk/C86/dream-pop pastiche it could have been otherwise.
Confession sounds a lot like dal Forno’s other records. She’s developed a formula that works, far removed from the barely there apparitions of her earliest music, where her voice was obscured by fuzz. Her face on the album cover is unobscured and ebullient, hair flying mid-turn like she’s an extra in the video for “Unwritten,” which feels all the funnier once you get to know the record. Despite her music’s po-faced aesthetics, she’s always had a sense of humor—sometimes a cruel one. I’m reminded of the hilarious and vindictive “So Much Better,” from her second LP, where she sings, “You were a disaster/And I’m glad I caused you pain.” Confession puts her wit and acid tongue in sharper relief, its ugly moments as brave and vulnerable as any introspective singer-songwriter’s revelations. Though its songs are simple and occasionally repetitive, the incisive lyrics cut through the clear country air, enough to turn heads a few times. She’s a brilliant writer who hides her best barbs in plain sight, usually with a laugh or a smile.
