A Song For Friday: Frances Chang

Is it just me, or does January seem awfully far away? That sense of distance from the beginning of the year is one reason I feel fully justified in breaking my unwritten rule of not featuring the same artist twice in the same year as the focus of A Song For Friday. Rules are meant to be broken, anyway, which is something Frances Chang knows everything about, having now followed her meandering muse into another marvelous album, been thinking bout confession (RVNG), which is out today.

After being “nearly overwhelmed” by the “truly celestial” I can feel the waves, the single I covered in January, I almost hoped Chang would give me a full year to absorb it before releasing an album. But the album was announced, and more songs began trickling out, including Is affect real?, which featured a spine-tingling string arrangement and leaned into the beatnik jazz element of her work.

That mode becomes central to Midnight in the garden, a gorgeous meditation from the middle of the album. Opening with some softly chopped and screwed piano stylings and echoing cymbals, Chang enters with that sublime and flexible voice. It’s hard to tell whether the vocal leads the piano (played by main collaborator Andréa Schiavelli) or vice versa, but the song follows a winding path as Chang sings the wisdom-charged free-verse lyrics. She also explores new areas of her voice, from a higher, more nasal register to a deep mezzo that sounds like another vocalist has entered the chat. Chang makes one of her nifty edits to introduce that section, too, which makes it even more startling, although in a gentle way. Only Chang could cause a gentle startle, just saying. William Alexander deserves kudos for how his drums ride the waves of Chang’s conception. The more you listen, the more everything makes sense, with touches of synth expanding the song. Eventually, Chang takes off into an extended vocalise that could make people weep with its searching beauty. Other singers, especially. Chang wisely gives you time to recover with an extended coda of muted synth. She really is something special.

The lyrics span the quotidian and the mythic, the personal and the universal in ways where you never quite know which line will hit you like a ton of bricks during any given listen.

Midnight in the garden of you deserving my trust
Just like waiting for lightning to strike
Too late you divined my tune
And sent me on my way, returned the gaze
The melody I’m wrapped into

Escape the nonprofit industrial complex
A community garden job
Stop
Last time I did it, I stole fire
And dreaming, all alone
Now that I’ve come home
The river’s run dry
I stole something; I’m sorry
Forgive me, you deserve my trust
No more melody
Don’t you see it’s out of style?

Frances Chang has given us another marvel with been thinking bout confession. And that’s something that will never go out of style.

Listen to most of the songs for Friday here or below.

Elanor Moss - The Knife, The Needle (Merge) Based in London, Moss’s exquisite acoustic guitar and warm voice define this debut of intimate chamber folk. Horns and strings, arranged by Matthew Herd, fill out the songs but never overshadow Moss. The musicians, including Moss, whose guitar buzzes and twangs, are given their head on Improvisation, an introspective instrumental with woozy sax, but lay out entirely on the final track, The Way That It Feels. As lovely as everything that came before is, hearing Moss on her own only makes her talent more impressive. One to watch.

Westside Cowboy - It Goes On (Island) I’m happy to report that the Manchester quartet of Reuben Haycocks, Jimmy Bradbury (vocals, guitars), Aoife Anson O’Connell (vocals, bass, and cello) and Paddy Murphy (drums) more than deliver on the promise of their EP from January, which I said was like getting “five bands in one.” Over the course of 11 tracks, however, this first full-length feels completely coherent, as each mode of rock and folk they employ gets their special touch. But it’s just awesome that one band can open an album with an anthemic rocker like Kick Stones (The Boys) and then serve up what sounds like a Civil War ballad in Take My Leaving As I Love You, the penultimate track. Paging Frankie Laine!

Sweeping Promises - You Say I Romanticize (Sub Pop) While their instrumental attack has grown sleeker since 2023’s terrific Good Times Are Coming For You, these Kansans (via Boston) have lost none of the power that made that album so memorable. Part of that has to do with Lira Mondal’s vocals, which can approach unhinged while never being out of control. A great example of this is Coccon, its deliberate tempo providing a foundation for Mondal’s devilish vocal arrangement, with her weaving shredded lead singing with multi-tracked and treated versions of herself to great effect. Mondal is also one of the most distinctive bassists around, and has a great foil in guitarist Caulfield Schnug, who can slice, slash, and provide color as each song requires. I do t know about good times, but Sweeping Promises are certainly delivering good records.

Peace Through Strength with Chanel Beads - Peace Through Strength, Vol. 5 (Self-Released) This subterranean journey through rhythm and atmosphere more than justifies its 43-minute length. Like a short film for the mind, it will have you going back to the beginning to make connections between what at first seem like tangents. PTS is the “free improvisation” project of Jack Tobias and Zack Borzone, whose day job (vocals and synth, respectively, for YHWH Nailgun) keeps them quite busy playing festivals like Big Ears and touring the world. I’m glad they found the time to start this series, however. Somehow I missed Vol. 2, which features Anastasia Coope, but you can bet it’s high on my list of 2025 releases to catch up with. While Vol. 5 isn’t on their Bandcamp yet, I recommend following them there. You never know when they’ll collaborate with one of your favorite musicians.

fling ii - 3 (We Are Busy Bodies) Over six long tracks, these self-deprecating (that lower-case “f,” the joke-riddled press release) these six Ann Arbor electro-heads embrace a version of yesterday’s futurism with a recognition that it was likely already nostalgic the second it was released. Such as it is when innovation outpaces sound waves, not to mention the music-industrial complex. But somehow the sound fling ii arrives at is more timeless than retro. Those arpeggiated synths that deliquesce into infinity, those atmospheric guitars painting streaks across the sky, the lightness of drums that also drive inevitably forward, and the bass lines that create space as much as they define it. There are occasional wordless vocals, too, for another texture, and everything is warmly recorded and polished to a high gloss. While the band says they made an album “nobody asked for,” you may be surprised how much 3 is just what you needed. And you’re not a nobody, are you?

jason calhoun - revelations of divine love (Dear Life) This brief album of brief tracks combines playful melodic material with textures that range from smooth and shiny to scratchy and stringent. The titles can be deadpan (intermission, at home, etc.) or provocative (eye dilation, suicide hotline, et al) but aren’t required to create an evocative atmosphere. Calhoun, a Philadelphia-based electronic musician and sound artist, has been at this for a while. I’m looking forward to digging into his back catalogue, but these “revelations” are more than enough for now.

Aisha Vaughan - Water World (Leaving Records) Diaphanous and with a touch of the humidity implied by the title, these vocally-enhanced electronic soundscapes by a Welsh musician sometimes resemble the Cocteau Twins if they became even less tethered to earth. And that, my friends, is a most welcome sensation.

Jaime Chirif Watanabe - Garabatos (Buh Records) The intrepid Luis Alvarado again delivers the South American avant-garde goods with this colorful collection of guitar-based collages. Watanabe is equally adept at messing with acoustic and electric instruments, and takes them to some wildly imaginative places.

Raymond Roussel - no one asked us yet (Halocine Trance) Not to fear, the French surrealist has been resurrected in name only for this new trio featuring Vancouver-based composer and improviser Eldritch Priest on guitar with James Meger on bass and Brady Cranfield on drums and electronics. Priest’s name was new to me (and presumably to his parents, at one time), but this is a captivating introduction with a wide range of moods and emotions. He’s a fluid player, too, at times reminiscent of Bill Frisell in his edgier days and not afraid of the dark. The three musicians are simpatico whether improvising or playing Priest’s compositions, which draw as much on 21st-century electronic music as they do classic jazz. For an introduction to Priest purely as a composer, Halocine has also released too, so like nothing, a fine collection of three sprawling solo piano pieces performed by the estimable Roger Admiral.

Josh Warren - The Path (Self-Released) While there’s nothing sardonic amidst the busy funk and sunny ballads on this debut collection from Warren, a Canadian bassist and composer, it’s easy to imagine Steely Dan sessioneers paging through the charts with admiration. And as ably realized by a crack squad, including Warren (bass), Christian Antonacci (trumpet/flugelhorn), Ethan Zabarylo (tenor sax), Miles Cakebread-Kraus (guitar), Emmett Hodgins (piano), Matteo Romaniello (drums), and Miles Johnson (percussion), Dan fans and others into post-fusion jazz (I just made that up) will be more than pleased when listening.

Grand Band - Grand Band Live (Cantaloupe) Six pianos on one stage might sound like a lot, but when you’re performing Gay Guerilla by Julius Eastman, it might not even be enough. But as performed by Erika Dohi, David Friend, Paul Kerekes, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore, and Isabelle O’Connell, it sounds like just the right amount. In addition to that piece, there’s also an expansive Missy Mazzoli work called Three Fragile Systems, commissioned by the band in 2018, and Julia Wolfe’s modern classic, my lips from speaking…, composed in 1993 and based on the opening chords from Aretha Franklin’s Think. Still thrills over 30 years later. The album opens with Kate Moore’s 2006 Sensitive Spot, originally composed for piano and multitracked electronics, but it works a treat in this context. While I wish we didn’t have to wait six years for the album, the fact that it was recorded at a concert in February 2020 is haunting. Even without that detail, however, there’s plenty of resonance in this exciting release.

Cheryl Duvall - Linda Catlin Smith: The Complete Piano Solos (1989-2023), Vol. 2 - The Underfolding (Redshift) I kinda blew it on the first volume of this series. In my defense, it came out late last year and consisted of one piece, The Plains, which is over an hour long. The mindshare needed to absorb it was already deep in the red, so I put it aside, and promptly forgot about it. But a dim bell rang when volume two arrived and my curiosity opened a cabinet of quiet delights. In Duvall’s sensitive and patient performances, Smith’s mastery of time and space becomes more and more evident. Most of the pieces are short, and have some of Satie’s gentle wit and songlike concision. The last two tracks, including The Underfolding, are longer and close the album out on a meditative note. I’ve since gone back to The Plains, and it more than justifies its length with a macro-architecture that reveals itself after a couple of listens. I hope there is more to come from this series, and if there is, I promise Duvall, Smith, and you that I won’t blow it again.

Patrick Yim - Bamboo Grove (Pentatone) In my brief review of One, Yim’s excellent 2024 album of solo violin music, I noted his “singing tone.” That quality and his astonishing virtuosity are both in evidence here, as is his dazzling ensemble work, sometimes on viola. The title track, composed by Zhou Long in 2024, is all Yim, however, and he dispatches its fragments and folk songs, including some tantalizing tactile effects, with flair. Zhou proves himself further as a terrific composer with Tales from the Nine Bells for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Piano (2013), a wonderfully cinematic piece. The other composer featured is Chen Yi, who draws on folk music from her mother’s hometown in Guangdong in the dramatic Xian Shi for Viola, Percussion, and Piano (1982) and evokes traditional Chinese instruments in the blazing Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds (2012). Everyone plays marvelously, and the recording is warm and detailed. Yim should be a name on the lips of anyone interested in contemporary violin (and viola!) playing.

Note: The graphic above is based on a photo by Maria Gelsomini.