Anniversary

The 5th of April will be the 1 year anniversary of the release of my first album. In some practical ways things are very much the same as they were pre-release, however in many more complicated and ultimately more meaningful ways, the release of the album has been life changing. Although the main promotional period is over, I’m still half-inside it, still performing it, occasionally talking about it, and so I don’t yet have the ability to look back on it with a great deal of clarity, but what I do know is that I’m insanely grateful to everyone who listened to this album and I feel deeply connected to that. Thank-you to anyone who has bought a record, streamed it, come to a show, sent me a message, bought merch… Thank you for all of it. Earnest moment over. For now.

I’m here on Substack because I’ve been thinking a lot about how best to communicate with those who listen to my music. As a lot of other artist friends I’m speaking to are finding, the Instagram algorithm does not seem to work in our favour anymore, none of us feel at home on Tiktok (happy for you if you do though) and elon’s Twitter is a defunct hellhole. A newsletter may not exactly be groundbreaking (insert florals for spring meme) but this feels like a good place for me to feel a bit freer with what I share online in the future.

I’m bad at keeping the archive of my life and work in any sort of order. I’m 30,000 photos deep on my iPhone and it’s stressing me the fuck out. The audio in my laptop is an assortment of nonsensically named project files & loose WAV’s. My desktop (both digital and real) is chaotic. That said, I have all this... stuff that i’d love to share. Alternate versions, unreleased songs, live recordings, visuals that were never shared for one reason or another. Mainly from the making of the album, but from the Paul Institute single releases before that too. I thought it might be fun to share these things in regular posts over the coming months for those who are interested, and I guess for me too - a sort of head clearing task perhaps, as I go into a new phase.

To start with, a few photos from the album making process. Going through four years of my camera roll to find these has reminded me of the comically unglamorous reality of making this album; endless Sainsbury’s meal deals (UK huns will understand); covid lockdowns where I sat alone for weeks on end with a SAD light aimed at my face; many, many shots of the back of Jai Paul and Harry Craze’s heads in dark rooms while they faced computers. In amongst it though, a select few to share here, in her self-titled honour:

January 2020, during the initial stages of working on what I thought was an EP, but quickly became an album.

Drinks with the lads after signing my record deal with XL over zoom in April 2020

In the attic where I did a lot of the initial writing. Teenage noticeboard and all.

At Narcissus studios recording piano for Stay With Me Through The Night and Forever

there was a lot of this

Harry Craze and I at a studio space in Kensal Rise that me, Jai, Hira and Mahir shared in 2021. Terrible landlord. It will always be known to us as Shabby Rd.

No caption needed

Taken whilst writing I Care and Give Me A Sign in the studio at the top of Laylow in west London

Back to the present. There’s been a lot going on this year. A trip to Japan for some shows at Blue Note Tokyo, an idyllic week in Catalonia trying to begin the album 2 process, a promo trip to China, more writing in London, some annoyingly grown-up life stuff to deal with too. There’s been a bit of downtime these past few weeks where I’ve been trying to recalibrate a little, preparing for this next part of the year where I try and get my head down into writing more new music before going on my first US and Canada tour at the end of April. I really can’t wait for it. I don’t think I’ve ever done more than 3 shows in a row before - it feels like a luxury to have 7 shows and to properly be in tour mode for a couple of weeks. I’m very happy to say that Yves Jarvis will be opening for us at all of the dates. I’ve been a big fan of his since I first heard his music last year and I’m excited to hear his near album All Cylinders live. We’ll also be joined by several other artists at a few of the dates - to be announced later this week.

Tickets available via www.fabianapalladino.com

Ok. Thanks for reading this. I’ll be back soon.

Love, Fabiana x

(Ps. You may have received this as a result of signing up to my mailing list in the past. If you don’t wish to receive these, you can unsubscribe at any time.)

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