If you’ve been fortunate enough to experience Dallas Frasca live, you already know she’s a Force Of Nature.
If you’ve been fortunate enough to experience Dallas Frasca live, you already know she’s a Force Of Nature.
She has previously said that being in a band was like her armour. Now Frasca finally feels ready to step into the solo spotlight, without the safety net provided by her steadfast musical soulmate and guitar beast Jeff Curran (don’t worry, they’re still besties).
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We’ve actually been jonesing for this release since rinsing its lead single, River Queen. Taking life cues from Mother Nature (“If the current is strong, then just wade for a while”), this is a song about surrender and going with the flow.
It features innovative percussion, which evokes the crunch of autumn leaves underfoot, but Frasca’s vocal performance – all honeyed huskiness – is the true star here.
Opener Pray – a call to action over stomping beat – repeatedly asks, “What’s going on?” Let It Rain commences a cappella, Frasca’s fierce vocals quivering with emotion until the chorus hits: an onslaught of staticky, descending riffs, mass harmonies and percussive accents that evoke rain pelting against a water tank – instrumentally, it’s giving NIN!
A lot of this album’s percussion was recorded by Josh Barber at his Mollongghip studio – a converted 1930s church in the Victorian Goldfields – where a large, mic’d-up water tank was also utilised, adding rural reverb to some of Frasca’s filthiest riffs.
For the anthemic Stand On My Shoulders, with its “Tom Waits-style junk percussion”, Frasca contributes banjo and guitar alongside rousing vocals. During May The Bridges We’ve Burned Light The Way, Frasca sings, “Repair the cracks with gold,” and this entire record embodies Kintsugi (golden repair): the Japanese practice of fixing broken stuff with liquid gold.
Be sure to listen out for the clever, inclusive lyrical twist that concludes She Was A Perfectly Broken Masterpiece, with its jubilant “Ah-oh-oh-oh/ Whoa-oh-oh…” singalong moment promising great things live.
Four years in the making, Force Of Nature draws from a boundless sonic palette: choir BVs, which send solidarity; dirty, reverb-drenched, blues-rock guitar; hooky vocal percussion (see: Nobody’s Coming To Save Me, with its punchy “OOH!/ AAH!” undercurrent); and field recordings from Frasca’s assorted writing trips in the bush.
While recording The Wind Blows’ pensive piano parts at her own Lady Luck Studios, Frasca noticed she’d somehow also captured the sound of birds chirping outside – nature, once again, announcing itself.
Frasca’s long-time collaborator Andy Baldwin (Björk, Elle King, Morcheeba) produced and mixed the record, and she acknowledges his “adventurous spirit” helped her grow beyond self-perceived limitations.
Force Of Nature has the power to reset your headspace. After just one spin, you’ll feel ready to take on the world; kind of like Beyoncé in the Hold Up film clip, when she bursts through heavy mansion doors and unleashes a torrent of water that cascades down the stairs.
RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
LABEL: SPANK BETTY RECORDS
