Released in 2024, Hannah Frances‘s album Keeper of the Shepherd represented an act of exhumation, digging through the remnants of the past to unearth those things which had long been lost. The process led to no small amount of dirt under the fingernails and demanded a fundamental vulnerability, something Frances happily endured in order to undertake this vital process. As though, in reckoning with what is buried, you can gain newfound control, deciding which parts of a personal history to hold close and cherish, which to finally let go.
Out this week via Fire Talk, Frances’s new album Nested in Tangles plays like the thicket of flora which sprouts from the ground broken by its predecessor. The life brought forth from turned-over earth. A diversity present not only in theme or tone but style itself. Lead single ‘Falling From and Further’ took “the folk song as a backbone only,” we wrote in a preview, “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,” while ‘Surviving You’ used a similarly inventive sound to explore, as we put it, “ideas of generational trauma and the coping mechanisms we develop in response.” Both singles came complete with videos Frances made in collaboration with Vanessa Castro, visual accompaniments which further expanded the reach of the songs and their inherent multiplicity.
With the release of the album imminent, Hannah Frances has returned with final single ‘The Space Between’. Serving as the crescendo of the record, the track rises from modest beginnings, the vocals a languid croon, the picked guitar like a dappled light, though soon develops into something intricate and exalted. Guest Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear) provides cello, piano, percussion and backing vocals to further enrich Frances’s arrangement, the sound ebbing and flowing with the kind of organic temperament which underpins the entire release. A healthy and fulfilling life is never just one thing, a monoculture neat and constant and happy, but rather an ecosystem of moods, periods and personas. A place where our different selves coexist and even care for one another, and there’s space for every shade of shadow and light.
True to form, the song comes complete with a video, the last in the series with Castro, featuring Frances performing a modern ballet sequence choreographed by New York City Ballet’s Emma Engel. “Inspired by Marcel Dzama’s plays and the surrealist imagination of Leonora Carrington, the piece follows Hannah’s younger self, also played by Engel, who guides her through a dialogue with her many parts,” as Castro describes. “These selves are embodied by a cast in animal masks, moving through a dreamlike world that blurs childhood imagination play with the discipline of growing up as a performer.”
Engel provides further detail behind the concept. “The choreography is dreamlike, built on playful shapes and gestures that return throughout the video,” they explain. “At first the movement is light and silly, but as the two characters grow closer, it transforms into something more powerful and heartfelt. Blending hints of ballet with free and abstract movement. The dance reflects connection, love and the joy of moving in sync with someone else and ultimately yourself.”
Nested in Tangles is out now via Fire Talk Records and available from the Hannah Frances Bandcamp page.
