New Music – Aoife Nessa Frances – Breaking Glass Magazine

Aoife Nessa Frances – Emptiness Follows

In Emptiness Follows, Aoife Nessa Frances finds a voice for bleak pain – one that entices with a delightfully calm track that feels like the lift music you’d find in a dream.

Instruments run riot in Frances’ track: Soft strokes of the harp accompany harmonising woodwinds in cuts that feel like a troop of cloud-flying musicians playing a soundtrack to your light walk. On the other hand, tight percussion and keyboards play an almost bossa nova beat that keeps the train of the track chugging alongside its delightful flavours. Even trumpets get a beautiful mix of the two, combining harmony with staccato pulses, helping solidify the tune.

From the instruments alone, it would be safe to assume the whole song is just as delightful – right? Well, this is where Frances’ singing comes in.

There is an intrigue in the way that Frances sings the sorrows of the track. It combines a quaint vulnerability (akin to Broadcast’s Trish Keenan) with the sonorous delight of moments like the feather-fall of “I’m counting do-oo-oo-o-own”, retaining a feeling of hope amidst the despair of Frances’ lyricism. Such a shift manages to keep the track’s tone a consistent floating along a painted river of mild melancholy.