Photos by Alonso Estaban Ayala / Words by Willa Rudolph
Singer/songwriter Carl Nelson released his debut EP Dovish last week via Endonesia under the artist name Carl RN, and it has been on repeat in my ears since! Especially the first track, “Force2b.” It makes my heart hurt, y’all!!!
Carl tells The Deli that Dovish is “a breakup album preceding a breakup. I wrote it over the course of a few years. It wasn’t necessarily meant to see the light of day. Making this music involved a lot of drawn out hyper-fixation. I indulged my neuroses, working an idea over and over and over.”
The music is genuinely stunning, recorded simply in his bedroom, just him and his guitar, until his mom Jenny Nelson added violin accompaniment, which Carl calls “the missing piece that tied the whole thing together.”
Guitar picking and strumming, plucking strings that harmonize together, hearing the calloused fingers against the strings so intimately, that tinny vibration sound–you can feel how delicate and intimate the recording process was. He sings softly over the strings, pouring his words out slowly.
Carl explains, “‘Dovish’ is a kind of military/political term that stands in contrast to ‘hawkish,’ which is declaring war/choosing violence. So it’s an analogy about a pacifistic but also avoidant tendency. Ultimately something about repressing. And acting like it’s a choice but maybe it’s not.” The songs express the mourning of a relationship before it’s truly over. You’re close to someone, but yet so far away…perhaps one of the most painful feelings.
“Out of that came a kind of serendipitous free association, a roundabout way of expressing something I had gotten good at avoiding or couldn’t otherwise put a finger on. And it feels almost as good as having just said the thing outright.” It’s interesting that Carl had gotten so good at avoidance because these songs are so starkly honest and descriptive, well-written and poetic—utilizing literary devices and vocabulary to impressive effect (I had to ask him what ‘dovish’ meant).
“[The EP] wasn’t meant to follow any kind of narrative, but songs appear as they were written chronologically.” Mixed by David Suh and Mastered by Jack Callahan, listening to Dovish is a like peering into a longing heart that isn’t knowingly confessing these feelings aloud, but holding onto them tightly as they threaten to explode outward. And I can only imagine releasing these songs into the world has allowed some flow back in for the artist.
Carl created the lyric-collages below to accompany the record, and they’re pretty awesome! He also made them into a zine. Scroll through to view the collages for each song in sequence.
Sidenote: He didn’t know this album, but I sent it to him when we were talking about the EP because Dovish kind of reminded me of it:
Carl RN’s Dovish is perfect to usher in the fall with! Go for a walk and cry behind your sunglasses or draw a picture in the park with this in your headphones. Maybe enjoy a little chain smoke out the window and feel a breeze with a hint of a small chill in it. Do it!
Keep up with Carl RN here! Find Dovish on Bandcamp here.
Photos by Alonso Estaban Ayala