Frances Chang, a Brooklyn-based musician, has been making waves with her magnetic and uncanny songwriting. Her songs seem to follow private trains of thought, shifting their subtle musical colors in a way that will slink into your head. Recommended for fans of Cate Le Bon, Astrid Sonne, and Julia Holter, Chang's new single 'No Avatar' is out now.
No Avatar: A Glimpse into Chang's World
On 'No Avatar,' Chang sings, 'No, I won't take a photo / Just walking around with no avatar,' her voice conversational and serene against little whorls of piano, skittish drum fizz, and softly flaring synths. Like Astrid Sonne's fragmented songwriting, Chang's songs are hard to pin down, mirroring the single's desire to avoid outward definition. Her music works to an internal logic, evoking a sort of uncanny domesticity: casual piano refrains, rainy percussion, the melty haze of a horizon at dusk, and grooves that slink in at the end of a song like next door's cat making itself at home.
A Sound with Warmth and Softness
Chang's sound shares a lot with the modern Copenhagen scene, but with more welcoming softness and warmth. Her January single 'I Can Feel the Waves' is a six-minute suite that starts out a little edgy, then yields with gorgeous warped piano and disarmingly intimate focus. Recently signed to RVNG Intl, the label that launched Julia Holter, Chang has also been compared to Cate Le Bon, another master of distanced beauty. She released her debut cassette, the abrasively fuzzy 'Support Your Local Nihilist' in 2022, and in 2024 her debut album proper, the proggy, unsettling 'Psychedelic Anxiety.' Her new material strips back all that noise for a limpid setting that lets her idiosyncratic lyricism shine.
This Week's Best New Tracks
Alongside Chang's captivating work, this week's best new tracks include a range of standout songs:
- Lambchop – Weakened: Backed by guitar, choir, and Justin Vernon on banjo, this is one of the most simple and beautiful ballads in Kurt Wagner's 40-odd years of music, as he sings of the threshold between life and death.
- Silvana Estrada and PabloPablo – Antes de Ti: Estrada's music is always elegant, and here she and Madrid's PabloPablo lilt beautifully around her cuatro's light strings, with a liquid, orchestral pivot opening up a cosmic portal.
- Josh da Costa – Proving Me Right: Formerly of duo CMON and drummer for Drugdealer and MGMT, Da Costa summons the spirit of Sparks for this new wave anthem with a chorus pitching like a ship in a storm.
- Martin Brugger – Knees, Hands, Shoulders, Teeth: As head of the Squama label, Brugger releases vanguard experimental records. His own ambient music is stunning—softly clanking, mournful, with traces of Kentucky post-rock.
- Bedouine – On My Own: With contributions from the Lemon Twigs, the backing is classic piano-driven MOR, but her affecting vocals offset the grandeur with sadness and smallness.
- Resonant Bodies – Failed Hornpipe for Jacken: Also of Sheffield cabaret-doom-folk ensemble Slug Milk, Rob Bentall and Zebedee Budworth pare things back for a refined and hopeful 10-minute blossoming of nyckelharpa and hammered dulcimer that pelts to a heart-stopping finish.
- Liz Lawrence – Exploded Into Flowers: In 2024, UK singer-songwriter Lawrence endured the death of her sister aged just 35. This song, about the abundant floral tributes at her funeral, rooted in a robust repeating melody, is a powerful tribute.
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