Aoife Nessa Frances
The name may be unmistakably Irish, but the music is by no means. Even though a harp glistens in arpeggios through "Emptiness Follows", the latest single by Aoife Nessa Frances, her songs are shaped by completely different styles. In 2020, her debut album "Land of No Junction" was released. The title is explained by an oversight: her producer told her about a trip through Wales and about a railway station called Llandudno Junction, and promptly the name was found. This also explains a little of Aoife Nessa Frances' way of working: Everything she perceives also has the potential to flow into her musical and lyrical thoughts and to be processed. Whether original or alienated is irrelevant. This is how this extremely elegant mixture of folky songwriting with psychedelic or jazzy elements, which take up bossa nova rhythms or Caribbean percussion and transform into art rock, and in which, according to her own statement, influences from Broadcast and Amen Dunes to Patti Smith and Radiohead to Alice Coltrane are reflected. In other words, categorising Aoife Nessa Frances' music by genre is not even possible. Instead, one simply sits down, listens to the sinuous melody lines that rarely lead the listener where they are expected to go, and rejoices in smooth harmonies that flow through the auditory canals like dreams at a smooth pace, wrapped in avant-garde orchestrations. Strings, synths, winds, flutes or even the harp: The music of the Irish has room for a great deal and also gives it the space and time to spread out. It is not uncommon for the artist to work on her pieces before sunrise. And that is exactly what the genre that Aoife Nessa Frances invented should be called: sunrise music.