“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… I realised after a while that even when I did sleep, I wasn’t really dreaming.” London-based musician Fabiana Palladino is enjoying the calm before the storm of wrapping up a major project, as she gears up for the release of her self-titled debut album, out on 5 April via Paul Institute/XL Recordings. But right now, we can already get a taste of what’s to come, as she unveils the third track of the project, “I Can’t Dream Anymore,” a heartfelt piece on love, loneliness and normativity in relationships.

“The track has this very insular feeling at first but opens up into something more emotional and direct as the song goes on,” she shares. “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.” A genre-defying artist, she draws inspiration from R&B, soul, pop and disco studio productions of the 80s and 90s to create her unique sounds, soon to be performed on stage in a performance-packed summer tour around the UK.

To complement the track’s sonic experience, Palladino also released a music video for “I Can’t Dream Anymore,” directed by Josh Renaut and Caroline Waxse. On the other side of the screen, we find Fabiana aboard Radio Caroline ship, the world’s most famous pirate radio station during the 60s and 70s, in a reflection of where her sense of longing exists in her isolation — and she shares BTS snippets on set with Wonderland below.

Here, we caught up with the musician to discuss the creative processes behind the track and music video, what listeners can expect from her upcoming album, and where she wishes to take her artistry next. Keep scrolling to read the full interview…

Hi Fabiana! How has 2024 been treating you so far?
Hi! 2024 has been pretty non-stop so far. It’s been a really exciting time in the run-up to releasing my album.

Talk to us about how you first fell in love with music and how you found your sound.
I grew up in a house where music was the centre of everything, it was just naturally something that was part of my life from a young age. I fell in love with a few records in my teens and it sparked an interest in songwriting. It took a long time to to find a sound that I loved though, that came from experimenting with production years later and slowly refining how I wanted my music to sound over quite a long period of time.

Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind your latest single, “I Can’t Dream Anymore”?
I wrote “I Can’t Dream Anymore” when I first started making my album during the first lockdown, I was staying up all night working, writing songs for the album alone, and I realised after a while the intensity and unreality of everything was affecting my sleep and i wasn’t dreaming anymore, or at least not remembering my dreams. That was the seed of what the song is about, losing a sense of yourself because of isolation or loneliness and how to reconfigure yourself and find a way to reconnect when you feel lost.

How did the concept for the music video for “I Can’t Dream Anymore” come about?
I was listening to the shipping forecast late at night during that period of time, I found it comforting but it was also a kind of escapism. At the end of the song you can hear a recreated version of it and it’s actually my mum’s voice reading it. We started talking about ships, various nautical stuff etc and she mentioned Radio Caroline to me – we came up with this video concept which is that 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.

Honestly, I didn’t really think we’d ever get to make the video but it was just fun to imagine it. When we realised we would actually need to make a video for this song I shared my idea with Caroline Waxse and Josh Renaut who ended up directing it – they really took my idea seriously and they found out we could actually shoot it on one of the original Radio Caroline ships called the Ross Revenge which is anchored off the coast of Essex. I’m so happy with how it turned out, though I’ve never been so cold in my life.

Who have been major inspirations to you both musically and personally?
Musically there’s so many but Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Kate Bush, D’Angelo, David Bowie are a few. Personally, many female friends who have navigated music / art / various creative industries over the years have been super inspiring to me and kept me going when things were difficult.

How did your personal experiences influence the creation of this album?
The stage I was at in my life and my circumstances at the time definitely influenced the creation of the album. I was already in quite a reflective headspace where I was trying to understand my place in the world, how I felt about the past, how it had led me to that particular point, and then the pandemic hit and there was nothing to do but write about it all.

What was it like working with Jai Paul, Pino Palladino, and other musicians on your debut album?
I’ve worked with Jai for a long time now and we have a pretty instinctive way of working together. I don’t have to explain much to him about what direction I think a song should go, or how it should sound, he just gets it. He always brings in a fresh perspective that is really exciting to me. With my Dad, Pino Palladino, he has such a deep understanding of music, I trust him completely, whatever he plays on a song just elevates it immediately.

Can you dive into the message behind this new album?
It’s a really personal record where I’m confronting some complex stuff, love, loneliness, desire… I was trying to uncover how I really felt about all these things. I guess my message is that we all deal with these things, that people don’t have to feel alone and that you can find a deeper understanding of yourself and your relationship to others by trying to connect to how you really feel.

How does the track “I Can’t Dream Anymore” reflect the overall sonic and emotional journey of your debut album?
Sonically I think it has that mix of old and new that I love to play with, you can hear the influence and approach of music from the past but there’s modernity in it too. It’s essentially a power ballad but it’s put gone through my own filter. Emotionally it ties into what I was saying above – there’s a sense of trying to find connection in the song, to yourself, to others. There’s heartache in not being able to dream anymore, not being able to imagine a future, or remember a feeling from the past, but there’s a certain power in trying to investigate that and not shy away from it.

What do you wish to experiment with within your musical profession?
I want to experiment more with my songwriting and try and write in some completely different ways, more concept driven, perhaps… I want to experiment much more with production too, maybe by limiting myself somehow, time wise or by using different recording methods or by only using specific instruments/equipment.

Do you have any more exciting projects in the works that you can share with us?
The main project at the moment is my live show. I’m really enjoying that, me and my bandmates are going out on tour in May and doing more shows and festivals over the summer. And I’m thinking a lot about what I want to make next… finding inspiration for that in some interesting and unexpected places at the moment.

See some BTS shots, courtesy of photographers Josh Renaut, Texas Maragh and Lola Ogunbiyi…