FEATURE: Spotlight: Aoife Nessa Frances

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Aoife Nessa Frances

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I am going to get to…

a couple of reviews for Aoife Nessa Frances’ new album, Protector. The Dublin artist is a magnificent talent who has followed her 2020 album, Land of No Junction. There is a new interview that helps us get a better understanding of this tremendous musician. Writing and co-producing (with) Brendan Jenkinson, there has been a lot of love for a terrific album. You can actually read more about Frances’ debut album and its background. Frances is actually touring the U.K. at the moment. Go and get a ticket to see her if you can. Such a remarkable songwriter and musician, her music is so beautiful and goes really deep. I am going to come to an interview with Aoife Nessa Frances. Before that, AllMusic provide a biography of the incredible Irish artist:

“Aoife Nessa Frances is an Irish singer/songwriter based in North Dublin whose haunting and sometimes experimental blend of indie folk and lightly psychedelic pop is dramatically conveyed by her lush, dark-toned vocals and elegant arrangements. She released her debut album, Land of No Junction, in January 2020. Her pastoral and ruminative follow-up, Protector, arrived in late 2022.

A native of Dublin's southern coastal area, Frances comes from a large creative family and was encouraged to engage with music at a young age. After a hand injury altered her course from flamenco guitar to more subtle folk and rock styles, she began writing songs and eventually found a place amid the city's bustling indie rock scene as one-half of the shoegaze duo Princess.

She and bandmate Liam Mesbur released a handful of singles and EPs, enjoying some decent exposure in the mid-2010s before going their separate ways. Over the coming years, Frances devoted herself to writing songs of a more pastoral, acoustic nature, working with collaborator Cian Nugent to develop an elegant sound that included light psychedelic flourishes and lush strings. Resurfacing in 2019 under her own name, she announced a deal with American indie Ba Da Bing Records, which issued her solo debut, Land of No Junction, early the following year.

With touring off temporarily off the table due to the global pandemic, Frances headed to rural County Clare on Ireland's west coast and began writing material for her next album. The focus of isolation, both in writing and recording, brought about a personal transformation that can be heard in the tranquil, mysterious sounds of her second album, Protector. Released in late 2022 by the Partisan label, the record explores themes of dislocation, family, and renewal”.

Recently, Loud and Quiet spoke with the amazing Aoife Nessa Frances. If you have not heard of her before, I would advise going onto her Bandcamp page (the link is at the bottom of this feature) and listen to Land of No Junction. Then go and investigate the brilliant Protector. The album is gaining really positive reviews so far. I want to quote a bit from the Loud and Quiet interview:

“Sitting on the grass on a sunny afternoon in the leafy Iveagh Gardens, nestled in Dublin’s city centre, Aoife Nessa Frances lists some of the bands whose names were inscribed on the walls of her childhood bedroom: Nirvana, Deus, Eels, The White Stripes. This train of nostalgia then takes us through gigs she attended as a teenager, from The Prodigy to Primal Scream, and festival appearances by James Brown, The Who and Kanye West long before he became the world-renowned figure he is today. It’s an eclectic assortment of artists to have played a part in Aoife’s formative years as she developed her musical taste, and a surprising selection considering her music today is so indebted to psych-pop and avant-garde instrumentation from the 1960s and ’70s.

When we meet, the Dublin-born songwriter and musician is two months away from the release of Protector, her second LP and first since signing to Partisan Records earlier this year. Her 2019 debut Land of No Junction introduced her as an artist with great promise and garnered deserved critical acclaim. Since then, she’s had a busy couple of years filled with an intense touring schedule and time spent in seclusion writing material that would eventually become this stunning follow-up. In the short distance between her debut and its successor, Aoife notes the considerable evolution – personally and professionally – that occurred between releases and how it has affected her relationship with her debut.

PHOTO CREDIT: Donal Talbot

The stories Aoife shares about herself, especially her younger years, demonstrates a life informed by and immersed in music. She recalls how her mother played songs by Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell on guitar in the home; her father makes fiddles and has a great love of music and enjoys everything from traditional Irish folk to techno. As a child, Aoife went to violin lessons herself, but discontinued them following a difficult period in her life when her parents separated – she associated the violin with the memories of that time. A few years away from becoming a teenager, she forged a strong connection with a different instrument.

“I got an old guitar that couldn’t even be tuned properly,” she says. “My parents saw that I had a big interest in playing it and they encouraged me to keep doing it. I did lessons, firstly with my parents’ friend Klaus who had also made my birth chart when I was a baby! I only figured this out years later. I still have it, and it was pretty spot on.”

In that initial period of picking up the guitar, she practised constantly and learned how to play her favourite songs, mostly by Nirvana, including their cover of Lead Belly’s ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’. Once adolescence arrived, she began writing her own songs and finding her voice.

“I still have the first song I ever wrote saved on my private Soundcloud page,” she laughs. “It was a very powerful experience writing it. I was around 15. I borrowed my friend’s Swedish grandfather’s guitar and I thought it had these magical qualities to it. I played it for a week or two over Christmas and the song just poured out of me. It happened without me realising what I’d done. It was a very emotional experience; I wasn’t crying but tears were streaming down my face. That actually still happens to me sometimes. When I’m writing or figuring out melodies my eyes just stream. Again, it’s not that I’m crying but something is happening, it’s very strange. I feel like that’s an indication that something is meaningful to me when it incites that kind of reaction.”

These days, Aoife is no stranger to the stage, but sometimes no amount of experience can make it easier for an artist to stand before a packed venue and expose the insecurities that inspired their art. “It’s intense,” says Aoife of performing her latest material to crowds, “but at the same time, I feel like the act of writing and recording songs isn’t complete until you share the work with the world. I do feel very vulnerable because even having to think about what the record is about in the lead-up to releasing it, you have to think about all these things. I found that really hard because I was almost trying to protect myself from oversharing. Talking about the album brings up a lot of stuff from when I was writing it. When it came to the time where I had to think about talking about Protector, I found I was putting up a massive wall and I didn’t want to say anything about it. Ultimately, though, I know it’s important to share my thoughts on things I’ve experienced because a lot of people navigate similar situations and feelings. I want people to connect and relate to the album, and I know everyone experiences things in different ways but, at the end of the day, we’re all human beings and yeah, the process of sharing these songs with people was the next level of getting to know myself, too”.

The first review of Protector I want to bring in is from Secret Meeting. A wonderful album that people definitely need to hear, Aoife Nessa Frances is a talent who is going to go very far. I am interested to see where her career goes next:

“On Protector, Aoife Nessa Frances holds up a mirror, and explores the human condition

Without trust, human beings become stagnant. And when we cannot find it elsewhere, in places or in others, we have only option: to look even deeper within ourselves. Protector is very much Aoife Nessa Frances holding up a mirror. And rather than falling back into comfortable tropes, the Irish songwriter doesn’t just step out of her comfort zone – but takes a series of leaps.

Having previously only written in her home city of Dublin, the inspiration for this, her follow up to 2020’s Land of No Junction, was born from her move to County Clare. Firstly, through days spent out on the road, with her father and her sisters, travelling and exploring Ireland’s West Coast. Then, in the quiet of her own company, finding her own process – writing ‘in the magic hour before the world woke up.’

Emptiness Follows marks Frances drifting away from friends. Wrapped up in a dawn-like hue, Meabh McKenna’s fingers flicker across her harp like fireflies that are all but burnt out, as Frances places her trust in her instincts, and the nature that surrounds her newly made home. It’s one of a few song where the words have met the page in a literal manner. But Protector is a record made to be experienced and felt – rather than needed to be understood. On Way To Say Goodbye, it is her Aldous Harding-alike voice that brings the emotion. On Chariot, it is the guitar flashes that recall The Brian Jonestown Massacre. This hybrid of folk, psych, chamber and pop means the LP cannot be pinned down – feeling both classic and contemporary at the same time.

From growing her familial bonds, to wrapping herself in quiet solitude, and exploring her inner strength, Protector is a living and breathing document of someone letting their heart be their instinctive guide. ‘Do you know where your story ends?’ Frances sings on Chariot. By holding a mirror up to herself, it’s the questions, reflections, growth and trust that are important – not the destination…”.

The final review is from The Last Mixed Tape. They beautifully describe what Protector sounds like and what sensations it elicits. It is a wonderful album that I would recommend everyone checks out when they can. It is clear that Aoife Nessa Frances is an artist with a clear ability and talent that will last for years:

“Protector plays out like the soundtrack to a long journey into night, a lonesome drive on the outskirts of town with only headlights illuminating the way. Such is the cinematic scope of Aoife Nessa Frances’ sophomore album that the music has a hypnotic quality that dances across a widescreen mixture of psychedelic, dream-pop and indie shapes and colors.

It’s challenging to extract singular parts of Protector from the over-arching work itself. The power of Aoife Nessa Frances’ latest offering comes from how each song beautifully melds into the next. This is a whole story, a narrative from beginning to end. Indeed, ‘Way To Say Goodbye’ instantly submerges us in the darkly-lit haze of Protector. Blending choruses and verses in the same way the individual tracks melt into one another, ‘This Still Life’ fades into view, almost emerging from the same textural landscape as ‘Way To Say Goodbye’.

That is not to say Protector lulls you into a passive listening experience; rather, much like the aforementioned late-night drive, there’s an insular immersive quality brought to the fore by Aoife Nessa Frances’ commanding performance. The sprawling ‘Only Child’ entrances with vivid passages of musicality as Frances powerfully draws focus, while the gently set ‘Back To Earth’ rests carefully on the tone and mood within her voice. This dreamlike back and forth between voice and sound is at the centre of Protector, weaving a sonic thread throughout.

The stand-out moment of Protector is Protector itself. As I said before, Aoife Nessa Frances has woven together a world so completely, that each element is essential to its mise-en-scène. A haunting vocal plays the main character while the music forms the setting, making the immersive nature of Protector its zenith.

And so it goes, Protector is the result of an artist at the height of their powers. Aoife Nessa Frances’ writes, directs and stars in a record that thrusts us into late-night soundscapes with the light of her music guiding the way. As thrilling as it is hypnotic, few albums this year are as cohesively constructed as Aoife Nessa Frances’ Protector”.

I will wrap things up soon. I have been following Aoife Nessa Frances’ music for a little while, but I have been wrapped up in Protector. Go and follow Frances on social media and listen to her new album. I have not seen her live, but I will try to when she plays in London in the future. Her music provokes so many different emotions and reactions. Her wonderful music comes…