Aoife Nessa Frances
Irish singer-songwriter’s first album explores in a psychedelic pop style. AS MIGHT BE expected from a record named after a mishearing of “Llandudno Junction”, the debut from Aoife Nessa Frances doesn’t centre on clear-cut or crisply defined states of mind. There is a lot of darkness in the Dubliner’s songs – not dramatic, gothic blackness, but the greyedout, mellotron fuzziness of waking from a dream just before dawn (In The End; the title track), not being sure exactly where you stand (Heartbreak; Here In The Dark), or feeling lost in a hostile place (Blow Up, written about life before Ireland’s abortion referendum). Recorded with a band that includes guitarist Cian Nugent and sharing ambient material with Cate Le Bon and Broadcast, these are songs that chime delicately with an uncertain world, in the best way possible, neither here nor there.