Sunday, January 19, 2020

Song(s) of the Day # 2,188 Aoife Nessa Frances


2020 really swung into gear music wise on Friday with several excellent new releases taking my fancy as I browsed during the day. Most notably perhaps, Irish singer songwriter Aoife Nessa Frances' first album, the splendidly entitled Land of no Junction. It's already received a fair bit of attention, Uncut Magazine named it their record of the month and its quite deserving to be accorded such status.


Altogether a dignified and stately record, clearly lovingly crafted and defined over a considerable period. Melodic throughout, almost baroque in tone, not a million miles from contemporaries such as Jane Weaver, Weyes Blood or Olden Yolk but most obviously indebted to Sixties melody and Nineties pioneers Stereolab, The Clientele and Broadcast, a debt which Frances was quite upfront about in the interview with Uncut which accompanied their review.


The themes the record explores are not immediately easy to ascertain as vocals are buried deep within the music. Like Weyes Blood's splendid Titanic Rising it seems to offer an escape from the tribulations of the current world into abstraction.The title of the record itself, apparently from a conversation with collaborator and co-producer Cian Nugent where Frances misheard Llandudno Junction as Land of no Junction. This basic premise gives the parties here carte blanche to explore their own realm of subconscious and dream and highly successfully too. The album is full of seductive vistas, and seems like a record you might want to return to again and again over the coming weeks and months.



So, having listened through to it a couple of times from start to finish I'd give it a fairly unqualified thumbs up. It's a sumptuous object. A coherent, accomplished and charming album to fully usher in the new year.




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