Gillian Frances is a poet and multi-instrumentalist from Portland, Oregon, who is teaming up with the folks at Good Cheer Records to put out a new EP, Born Yesterday. Born to parents active in the Portland’s 90s grunge scene, Frances has a strong musical history, though honed her own voice through the Oregon non-profit Rock & Roll Camp For Girls:
I was involved with that camp for about ten years—as a camper, an intern and then a music instructor and band coach,” Frances explains. “It was there that I learned about the misrepresentation of women, queer people and people of colour in the music industry. I began learning about sexism, feminism, and the power behind protest music.
Born Yesterday feels like a culmination of these themes and ideas, though the record does not play as an explicit statement. Rather, it feels a natural gathering of thoughts and opinions, the logical product born of the lessons Frances has been learning. This requires a certain degree of opening up, working through feelings in real-time via music, and is manifested as a palpable vulnerability in the songs and lyrics.
Opening track ‘Blue Shit’ is a good example, a brand of folk that delves deep into the unspoken dimensions of human character, though implicitly, hinting at the sense of sadness and dissatisfaction rather than displaying them in overwrought focus. Furthermore, Gillian Frances utilises a meditative sound that combats any danger of mawkish sentiment, the vocals delivered in an even tone that suggests simple and organic communication.
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‘Pet Diamond’ follows a similar pattern, utilises ambient noises and field recordings to flesh out the dreamy background atmosphere, and while ‘Vanilla’ is more focused and driven, the poetic nature of the lyrics allows a lightness to remain. “We’re still children now,” Frances sings, her comforting croon skating along the foggy instrumentation. “Vanilla-scented adolescents / with hooks in the clouds, dragging lines in our messes / Our minds swirling in a fluorescent tide / emptied and ready for the flight.”
Allowing space back into the instrumentation, closer ‘Gold’ is a slow-burner hung upon rhythmic guitar, and though the expectation is for this to smoulder into something more fierce, Frances remains in the restrained track, again allowing what is left absent to act as the driving force. The result, like much of the EP, is something akin to a daydream. Though this is not a fanciful vision where the impossible becomes real, rather a introspective reflection, a space in which Frances has room to say what might otherwise be impossible, or else not say what she might else feel compelled to.
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Born Yesterday is out via Good Cheer Records and you can snag a copy via the Gillian Frances Bandcamp page.
Cover art by Jonathan Benz