A bedroom with the lights on
Transmission 06 · Filed under: Observed · Amsterdam, Thursday 24 September 2026
Who they are
Carla dal Forno is an Australian singer, songwriter and producer. She started in Melbourne around 2010, while finishing a fine arts degree, in bands such as Mole House and F ingers. She lived in Berlin by 2016, when her first solo album came out, and later moved on to London and back to Australia. She has released four albums: You Know What It's Like (2016), Look Up Sharp (2019), Come Around (2022) and Confession (24 April 2026). Confession is on her own label, Kallista Records, named after a leafy suburb near where she grew up. Her sound sits between post-punk, dub and ambient pop: slow bass, sparse drums, a quiet voice close to the microphone. Her lyrics often come back to home, friendship and the things that are hard to say out loud. The new album was recorded in a studio inside a partly abandoned hospital.
Ebby is a band from Rotterdam around the songwriter Doortje Hiddema, who also plays in Rats on Rafts. She made music for years under the name Euroboy and changed it to Ebby. Her album abcde first came out under the old name and was produced with Michiel Klein of Lewsberg, the Rotterdam band known for dry, deadpan songs. Klein plays guitar in Ebby. The sound is deliberately rough and experimental, with off-beat guitar and deliberate dissonance.
The evening
The show was on Thursday 24 September 2026 in Amsterdam, organised by the promoters Subbacultcha at the venue murmur. It was sold out, the room was small, and you could see every face.
Ebby opened. My informant found them fine. Others around them were more enthusiastic, and enough to go home with a record: vinyl was bought. One thing was easy to hear without being told: the Lewsberg influence. That is not coincidence, as the guitarist is the same person, but it is a pleasure to hear a connection that you only knew from the credits.
Carla dal Forno was light. That was the word that came back. Cheerful, even. She seemed to enjoy herself, like someone making music in a bedroom, with no one around to impress. For an artist known for a nocturnal, downcast sound, that was a surprise.
Why it fits
Philosopher Gaston Bachelard, in The Poetics of Space (French original 1957), wrote that a house is not just a shelter but a place where we daydream: corners, attics and small rooms hold our intimacy. Both acts on this bill come from such rooms, a home-made, do-it-yourself way of recording. A small venue like murmur works like a lending library for that closeness. Intimacy cannot be recorded and sent out, but it can be borrowed for an hour.
There is a tension I will not resolve. The new album was made in a former hospital, a place that is the opposite of a bedroom. Yet the person on stage looked like she was in one. I would like to say that this is the point: that she carries the bedroom with her into every institution. It is a beautiful sentence. It is also too neat, so treat it as a guess.
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