Chicago-based songwriter and instrumentalist Hannah Frances won acclaim last year with full-length Keeper of the Shepherd, an album released with Fire Talk Records which saw the artist excavate their own past in order to reimagine a better future, or indeed a better self. One which drew on the full array of tools for such a dig—from the force and weight of breaking earth to a fine, tender touch more akin to brushing dust from the most delicate of objects—and ultimately brought forth such artifacts not as some exercise in remembrance or cataloging but rather in order to relinquish their hold. “Keeper of the Shepherd is both a prayer and a shield,” as Tasha wrote in the album’s liner notes. “We are carefully freed from the ruin of what’s hurt us, and kept safe, here, in a shining landscape more vast than we ever could have imagined.”
Hannah Frances’s first new music since that release, latest single ‘Falling From and Further’ both continues the mission of its predecessor and begins to move beyond it. “I feel so elated and proud to share ‘Falling From and Further.’ It is a door into my next musical chapter, achieving the poignant vulnerability, grounded whimsy, and measured experimentalism that I strive for in my work,” Frances says of the release. “This song was a breakthrough for me in contending with the roots of my relational past, and holding space for the fragmented parts of me that are learning to trust through fear of abandonment.” True to form, the result takes the folk song as a backbone only, elaborating the sound with layers of prog and jazz sensibilities so that the track becomes a world of its own without ever losing the core thread of personal vulnerability which has long run through Frances’s work.
the fear of everyone leaving
keeps me leaving first,
when my world grows smaller
falling from and further toward to
feel it all
feel it all
The song comes complete with a video created by Hannah Frances herself. Representing her first foray into directing and editing, the video enlists Derrick Alexander as DP and Vanessa Castro as colorist to bring a visual representation of the track to life. “‘Falling From and Further’ is about fear of abandonment and the subsequent push and pull of attachment, and I wanted to visually encapsulate that juxtaposition of intimacy as well as illuminate the retrospective nature of my writing,” Frances explains. “To represent my present awareness I had my band perform, and had my friend Av Grannan as the embodiment of my past. She and I did contact improvisation, working with and conveying the experiences of oscillation, mistrust, interdependence, isolation, security, holding, and releasing. It was very cathartic and joyful.”
‘Falling From and Further’ is out now via Fire Talk Records and you can get it from the Hannah Frances Bandcamp page.