Domini Forster explores the lonely

DOMINI Forster will return to the Northern Rivers next month for three shows, including a house concert near her childhood home in Byron Bay.

Forster’s sophomore album marks a return to solo work following a striking collaborative release and tour with Lior in 2023.

Her new album, The Lonely, is scheduled for release on July 20.

“I have a fantastic team around this album,” Forster said.

“I worked with Lachlan Carrick and Josh Barber as producers, and the three of us worked intimately on the album.

“They’ve put a lot of their creative selves into the sound world around the songs.”

The singer said the project came at a time when she was working through a period of anxiety.

“I’ve always been a big feeler and an over thinker, and I’ve always had an interest in mental health and community and wellness,” she said.

“At the time, I was working with Wild at Heart and mentoring songwriters living with mental health challenges.

“I was very focused on patterns of connection and disconnection and was working with people to transform stories of struggle with the human condition into songs.”

As the workshops progressed, more stories emerged.

“I noticed that loneliness kept on coming up at the core of them and I felt that was often part of why people became unwell, and as their mental health declined, their isolation intensified and became a spiral that was hard to break out of,” Forster said.

“As a writer, sharing vulnerably about your struggle allows you and the audience to feel more seen and understood as humans, and that none of us is uniquely broken or alone in all this.

“Some of my favourite albums do that for me, and I’m hoping my album can do that for other people.”

The Melbourne-based, Nimbin-born Forster grew up in Byron Bay, and the house concert in the shire holds a full-circle significance for the musician.

“The concert is in Ewingsdale, and I went to Byron Steiner School,” she said.

“I’m a Steiner kid through and through, and spent the majority of my childhood heading there to school every day.

“It’s lovely to be playing one of the launch shows just down the road – it’s very special.”

The record was produced on an isolated property in rural Victoria that Forster said was ironic.

“We went out to a beautiful studio, a converted 1860’s chapel in the Goldfields region near Daylesford,” she said.

“The album is called The Lonely, with a theme of loneliness running through it, but I wanted to make the process collaborative because the more I’ve developed as an artist, the more I feel collaboration makes art stronger.

“My favourite thing about this record is that the songs are intensely vulnerable, but the world we’ve created is rich and intricate, almost to the point of feeling cinematic, but it still maintains a sense of intimacy. I’m proud of that.”

Forster plays Murwillumbah on August 28 and Brunswick Heads on August 29 with Emily Lubitz, and a secret house concert in Byron Bay on September 6.

For all tickets, visit humanitix.com