Release Radar: Carla Malrowe’s debut release is a dark, captivating pop song

“Dear Host”, a dark, captivating pop song, is the debut release from Carla Malrowe, an alternative artist from South Africa, now based in the Netherlands.

A songwriter, producer, pianist and singer with a vast love for drum machine plugins, screeching electric violins and lyrics that are unapologetically macabre and melancholic, Malrowe says the inspiration for the single was a question she wrote as the opening line of a love letter.

“That question was “Would you tear it out of me?” and, arising out of that, I wanted to explore how love and toxic dependency can co-exist and what that dialogue would sound like,” she says. “I wanted to approach the composition as being in sharp contrast to this dark lyrical theme, so I made it a pop song, very much inspired by the album ‘Visions’ by artist Grimes.

“Dear Host” is the first track off Malrowe’s debut EP, The Petals and Sand, due out in the coming month. 

The songs off the EP began life in her home studio while she was still based in Johannesburg. Malrowe then went into producer Barry Berk’s The Bass Station studio to turn her demos into songs.  Among those working on the EP is noted string player, Waldo Luc Alexander who contributes violin and violas, while acclaimed South African producer Matthew Fink mastered the final product. 

Malrowe is now based in the Netherlands, a base from which she intends to take her honest, sad and dark music to a wider audience.