London-based singer-songwriter and musician Fabiana Palladino, daughter of the legendary bassist Pino Palladino and a protégée of the Paul Institute, is preparing for the release of her debut album. Thus far, she has revealed the Jai Paul-assisted duet “I Care” and the stirring “Stay With Me Through The Night.” Recently, Palladino shared another exquisite single from the album, “I Can’t Dream Anymore.” The dark 80s synth-led ballad is also accompanied by an extensive statement.

“I wrote ‘I Can’t Dream Anymore‘ in a period of the first lockdown where I was staying up too late, writing songs for the album alone and the intensity and unreality of everything started to affect my sleep…,” Palladino explains. “I realised after a while that even when I did sleep, I wasn’t really dreaming. Everything felt very surreal, and it reminded me of when I’ve been in the aftermath of big changes, those moments in life where everything shifts and you have to reconfigure yourself.

“The track has this very insular feeling at first but opens up into something more emotional and direct as the song goes on,” Palladino adds. “We leant into that with the production; we wanted to make it borderline melodramatic, like a power-ballad. There’s real heartache in not being able to dream anymore, not being able to imagine a future or remember a feeling from the past, so I didn’t want to shy away from the big feelings in the lyrics.

“I listened to the shipping forecast for comfort during the time of writing the album,” Palladino continues. “I found it relaxing, but it was also a kind of escapism for me. The isolation I was feeling felt more romantic when I listened to it. I’d be playing this imagined, isolated version of myself out to sea, completely alone but connected to others by broadcasting my radio show from the ship late into the night, which is how I connected with Radio Caroline for the video. A theme across the album is connection and disconnection. It’s something I’m fascinated by, and the video represents it in a way which feels specific to ‘I Can’t Dream Anymore.‘

Reflecting her feelings of isolation and loneliness, Fabiana Palladino filmed the music video for “I Can’t Dream Anymore” with directors Caroline Waxse and Josh Renaut aboard the historic ship housing Radio Caroline. This renowned pirate radio station was founded in 1964 and has played a significant role in shaping not only UK radio but also the pop and rock music industry. Watch below.

A former member of both Jessie Ware and SBTRKT‘s backing bands, Fabiana Palladino is also the protégée of Jai Paul and A. K. Paul, who are running the elusive Paul Institute. It’s on this record label and creative house that the pop visionary will release her long-awaited debut album – yet to be detailed. If like us, you just can’t wait, you can already listen to the slow-consuming and ethereal ballad “I Care,” on which she’s joined by Jai Paul.

“I wrote this song on my Juno 106 one night at home and played it to Jai the next day,” explained Palladino. “He instantly came up with a beat and we worked together on the track from there. I’ve always loved those Motown duets with Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, or Diana Ross and wanted to create a modern version of that. We’re playing with the way those duets have this quite clear notion of romance, love and relationships…we’re subverting that a little to explore normativity in relationships. Musically, we’ve tried to put all of the beauty, excitement, and tension of modern day love into this song.”

Siblings and studio partners Jai and A. K. Paul are the masterminds who manage the record label and music platform Paul Institute. Over the last four years, the enigmatic collective notably released Jai Paul‘s iconic leaked demo album, entitled Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones), as well as a series of singles from some other elusive up and coming talents. However, the whole crew has been pretty quiet recently. Until yesterday at least, as they’ve surprise dropped a 6-track EP with 5 brand new tracks (the opening track, A. K. Paul‘s “Be Honest,” was revealed a few days earlier).

About the Summer 2020 EP, A. K. Paul commented: “I’m really happy we’re releasing new music with Paul Institute this summer. It’s been a while coming and the last couple of years have been perilous at times for PI, particularly because of a legal fight that set us back. So besides it being sick music, to return with such a strong set of releases feels like a vindication of our rights as artists too.”

The summery mixtape features the appropriately named track “Waiting”, from Fabiana Palladino featuring Jai Paul as well as a Stevie Wonder 2.0-like track from Ruthven. It also introduces Pen Pals, the brand new signees of the collective.

The track was written, produced, mixed and mastered by the artist himself. Moreover, he also played the vocals, guitar, bass guitar, the synthesisers and percussion alone. Basically, A.K. Paul could be a Prince of our modern times.

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The artist was already known for his several productions for artists such as Big Boi, Jessie Ware, Emeli Sandé and Sam Smith. Some days ago, London-based sensation Nao also hinted on Instagram that the siblings were working on her debut album.

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As a reminder, his brother Jai Paul got famous 4 years ago with “Jasmine (Demo)”, an electro-funky lo-fi gem which created a quite impressive buzz knowing that the artist was almost a complete stranger!

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