Frances Quinlan - Likewise

For Fans Of: Hop Along, Waxahatchee, Great Grandpa, Big Thief, Charly Bliss

Top Tracks: Your Reply, Rare Thing, Went To LA, Lean, Now That I'm Back, Carry The Zero

Info: Frances is "an expertly narrative songwriter and a peerless singer in the indie-rock world" (NPR) and “‘Likewise’ has Quinlan wandering into new territory, adding strings, auto-harp...synths, and digital beats behind her distinctive voice.” (The FADER)

“We should try again to talk,” Frances Quinlan writes. It’s not just a lyric—it’s a suggestion, a warning, a plea, a wish. This request is woven throughout Likewise, her forthcoming solo album, amidst dramatically shifting motifs. Some are jubilant, some are dreamy and abstract, and a few are sinister, but within each dark void that Quinlan explores, there is a light peering back at her.

With a renewed openness to explore different sounds, Quinlan supplements her typical guitar-based instrumentation with synthesizers, digital beats, harps, strings, and a wide variety of keyboards. The shifting and exploratory nature of these musical arrangements allow her lyrics and vocals—which have always been at the forefront of her music—to reach emotional depths like never before. Her vocal tones beckon a kaleidoscopic range of emotions across all nine songs on the album, from soft and ruminative to enraged and commanding; from conveying powerful messages to highlighting small, yet poignant, moments.

Quinlan is a voyaging songwriter. Throughout Likewise, she confronts what confounds her in the hopes that she will come out on the other side with a better sense of what it is to be human. She presents listeners with a complicated, albeit spirited vision of what it could mean to truly engage with another person, to give a small piece of oneself over to someone else without expectation. Although such is likely to be a lifelong effort, these songs prove evident that light can still permeate from unsettling depths. (Excerpt from Co-Sign)

Label: Saddle Creek