I went to the launch of this single but bizarrely I prefer the recording to Fran’s performance that night. Perhaps it’s because here we’re privy to the subtle nuances of her songs. Simple in combining vocal and picked acoustic guitar but weighty with detail, intricacy and feeling, they are both epic and personal. The emotional sophistication in her tales belies her youth,, the folk tradition referenced in an original way. She has an unusual voice, pure but lush and operatic, with a sense of crushed passion, heightened by prayer-like, swirling harmonies. The delicate patterns and hooks in guitar and vocals evoke music of centuries gone. An earthy beat underpins the first track, recalling the musician’s traditional relation to the natural world. This single comes across as a window opened briefly on a soulful imagination.

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