Frances - I Care featuring Pomo

Whilst (arguably) the forthcoming BBC Sound of 2016 poll (OK, we’re a bit early on this, but trust us, it won’t be long) is the widest open for a number of years, as there doesn’t appear, at this stage at least, to be any obvious clear cut winners or runners up like Years & Years and James Bay last year, one artist that must at least stand a small chance of getting her name on the list is Frances. That is, if voters decide they want to go for another Radio 1 / Radio 2 piano ballad crossover type person like Rae Morris. Which of course they might not do. 

However, for now we’ll have to forget about tip lists and concentrate on what really matters – the music. So here it is. Taken from Let It Out, the new EP released 16th October comes I Care, a song recorded with Montreal based producer Pomo. It finds Frances stepping out from a small town into the city, with endless possibilities ahead of her. “Let’s make it come true-oo-oo,” she sings sounding even more like the aforementioned Morris than Morris herself. With some neat little production flourishes and electronics added that never becoming overbearing, Frances has made another piece of mature mellow pop for us to enjoy.

Frances - I Care featuring Pomo

Frances - Let It Out

One of the problems of being a music junkie on the internet, but also having a very busy life outside of music, is that here at Breaking More Waves we simply don’t possess enough time to write about everything that we love (ok, we could sleep less, but trust us we survive on very little sleep anyway). The result is a blog that sometimes very much falls into type and doesn’t necessarily show the broader range of taste that we have. This week for example we’ve been listening to lots of Aphex Twin, Nils Frahm, Frazey Ford, Chemical Brothers and Hooton Tennis Club but you won’t find much mention of any of them on this blog (until perhaps some of them in our album's of the year posts in December)

Today we absolutely fall into the safety net. Frances has already been featured before on Breaking More Waves and new song Let It Out is exactly the sort of thing you’d probably expect to find here. It's a divinely pretty piano ballad that sounds a bit like Rae Morris and a bit like Oh Wonder, two blog regulars. With its oh-oh-oh lighters in the air chants and tears in my eyes emotion it also hints at some sort of Coldplay-esque stadium aspirations, that is if the stadium was actually a rather pleasant café, church or seated velvet lined  club, which to be honest is where you're more likely to find us than the soul-sucking hollow emptiness of an arena / enormodome. Let It Out is taken from the new EP from Frances which is due on Communion Records on October 16^th.

Frances - Let It Out

Frances - When It Comes To Us (Featuring Ritual)

In June Breaking More Waves was lucky enough to witness relative newcomer Frances play an incredibly assured set under the stained glass windows of St Stephen’s church at London’s Bushstock Festival. Her music and singing was full of emotion, talent and power but was never swollen to a point of being over dramatic.

Whilst that show featured just Frances at a keyboard, this new tune, When It Comes To Us (featuring the electronic influence and vocal of Ritual) is a bit of a diversion from that piano balladry, with some distinct R n B flavours weaving their way into the production.

It’s a tune about a rare opposites attract relationship (we state rare because decades of scientific research will tell you that the vast majority of us seek out people who feel similar to ourselves) “It really shouldn’t work but it does,” Frances sings and you might find, like we did, a little shiver running down the spine.  If you want some reference points we’d say it sounds a bit like Rae Morris doing Pure Shores (what a tune!) by All Saints produced by recent blog favourites Oh Wonder. No surprises to find that it gets the full approval of this blog then.

When It Comes To Us features  on the Grow EP by Frances which is released on the all new global release day of 10th July.

Frances - When It Comes To Us (Featuring Ritual)