In the 1980s, Carla dal Forno’s debut-style on »You Know What It’s Like« would have been labelled as »original sound of Berlin«. You’ve got the obligatory synth-loops, the slightly foundering beats, and a mild kind of darkness that’s both ubiquitous and absent. On top of it all, there are the vocals sung by the mountain Helikon’s nymph. An echo caught in between street canyons, wandering lonely and lost between Berlin-Neukölln’s tenement houses, »The Same Reply«, over and over. Personally, I’d offer almost everything in order for Berlin to sound and be the way the record portrays it – no pretentious attitudes, no false affectations. »You Know What It’s Like« has become some sort of medicine against these feelings. The record promises relief. The fact that a recent settler has created it (Carla dal Forno grew up in Melbourne, Australia), supports the thesis of »You Know What It’s Like« idealizing Berlin as a place of longing. However, please don’t make the mistake of moving to Berlin. Making a coffee and hanging up a picture crookedly should do the trick, too. Really! And then you’ll just play the record again. And again. Oh, and the greatest thing about »You Know What It’s Like« is that it takes the format of an album seriously: instead of being built around one hit (even though the recently released single »Fast Moving Cars« is excellent), the album itself is a hit. And that’s something I haven’t been able to write about a record for what felt like an eternity.
Yukimi
For You
Ninja Tune