Carla’s music is vibrant, ethereal, sometimes haunting, and so often mesmerizing. — POPAXIOM
When Carla Patullo was a child, her grandmother sang to her, asking Carla to record her voice as a way to hold on to her memory. Years later, following a near-death experience, Carla recreated her grandmother’s instinct — she recorded her own voice, and So She Howls, a cathartic and cinematic soundscape, was born, winning the 2024 GRAMMY® Award for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album.
“During that dark time, I sang into my phone and this primal sound came out,” the LA-based artist recalls. “It made me more aware of the therapeutic power of music.”
Now a survivor, Carla turns her attention to deeper personal terrain with NOMADICA, her most recent album. In it, she revisits the sudden loss of her mother in a car accident years ago, imagining the tender conversations they never got to have. The album once again includes Patullo’s musician friends, the vocal ensemble Tonality (Bjork, Sigur Ros), the Scorchio Quartet (Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson), and Martha Wainwright.
Carla is a solo artist, a film score composer, and a songwriter — she calls her sensibility ‘genre fluid’. Her music connects with the emotions found in grief, healing, redemption, and joy. She is best known for an aesthetic that includes intricate orchestral passages, lush acoustics, beds of dreamy vocals, and adventurous electronics.
“[CARLA PATULLO] occupies a zone midpoint between Kate Bush and Martha Bates Motels creating a semi-symphonic progressive melodic groove that enthralls, absorbs, saddens, uplifts, and caresses the ear and mind in a tale of deliquescing love.” — ACOUSTIC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Patullo is a lifelong musician who earned a bachelor’s degree in songwriting and a master’s of film music from Berklee College of Music. She began her career releasing albums and touring with the rock band, White Widow, before signing on as musical director with Sandra Bernhard where she performed with various artists such as Liza Minnelli and Rufus Wainright.
After her time with Bernhard, Carla embarked on a successful career as a composer for film and TV. Some of Carla’s recent film scores include the feature film Bitterroot, which premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival; the Disney+ film Maxine, starring Margaret Cho; Everybody Dies . . . Sometimes, directed by Charlotte Hamblinl; Magic Hour, an upcoming dramedy starring Miriam Shor; My Name Is Maria De Jesus, an HBO Latino film; Porno, Fangoria’s recent SXSW hit; and the IDA shortlisted documentary Lotte that Silhouette Girl.
She is a Sundance Film Music and Sound Design Lab alumna, and four-time Hollywood Music in Media Award Nominee. This past year, because of Carla’s work related to animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger, two of Carla’s film scores were presented at The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences Museum. As her body of film work shows, Patullo is passionate about writing music that supports and advances inclusion for women, immigrants, cancer survivors, and the LGBTQ+ community.
“We had Carla Patullo winning for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album … It felt like we finally had wonderful representation in all genres, and I think that’s really important …” — BILLBOARD
Carla is also a prolific songwriter and has written over 100 songs with placements on film and TV shows, such as the Sundance award-winning film Spa Night, Teen Titans Go (Cartoon Network), The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Skins (UK), Sabrina the Teenage Witch, L.A. A Queer History (PBS), and many more.
Currently, Carla is scoring the new Indie Sci-Fi ‘Brother Save Us’ starring Deacon Phillippe and Chandler Riggs from her LA studio, The Soundry. “I’ve learned to let pain shape me into someone more vulnerable — and more alive,” she says about her writing process.
