Carla dal Forno's Second Bioluminescent Single Is Even "Better Yet"

Carla dal Forno has been making gunmetal grey, steel-wool scoured recordings over the past few years as part of F ingers and Tarcar. That's usually what you do when you're signed to a label like Blackest Ever Black, you indulge your most gnarled and grim tendencies and let others cower at the results. But as a solo artist, dal Forno's seemingly decided to take a different tact—at least if her debut 7" (also for BEB) is any indication.

A couple of weeks ago she released "Fast Moving Cars," a shaky, hesitant but nevertheless luminous track meant to cast a little light in the darkened caverns of her work to date—sunbeam meant to burn off the clouds that came before it. Today, she's sharing that single's flip side, the marginally murkier "Better Yet." It's a sly ballad, built like "Fast Moving Cars" around the sparse clatter of a drum machine and a few dazed guitar parts. But this time her voice recedes into a fog of reverb, still shining, but more like the way an anglerfish shines in the oceans depths—beauty hiding more terrible things just offscreen.

To that end, dal Forno told THUMP that the life circumstances that spawned the song were similarly both bleak and inspiring. The track was recorded while she was living alone in a house that a friend had moved away from. "The house was old and falling apart, there was dust everywhere and piles of discarded objects that my friend had left behind after the collapse of her relationship, old mementos [and] souvenirs," She said over email. "The wiring in the house was faulty and the lights would flicker on and off. It was a weird time as I was worried about the house burning down, but it was also a good opportunity to write music."

You can listen to that track here in advance of its April 29 release, and if you're into it, dal Forno will play her first ever live solo date on July 27 at London's Cafe Oto with Officer!. Tickets for that will go on sale this Wednesday, April 27.