“i quit cigs” by Frances Chang

Frances Chang has shared the latest single off her debut album support your local nihIlist, “i quit cigs,” comes accompanied with a video directed by Berlin-based artist Madelyn Byrd. The Brooklyn singer/songwriter releases her debut album on July 28th via Destiny is a Dog.

“i quit cigs” is a tortured processing of the experience of quitting nicotine. A chorus of vocals addressing anxiety and the threat of unconscious overwhelm echo as if in a cathedral, recalling a similar sense of devoutness. The steady mood of repent is punctuated by downright violent shocks of clipping blocks of distorted electric guitar. The climax–or rather, the nadir–of the song is marked by the abrupt wailing of Carolyn Hietter’s (Financial Collapse, Kolb) saxophone, which, in another hairpin turn, capitulates suddenly to the underlying emotion of the moment before softening into a smooth, bittersweet optimism, the zen of release.

An astrology writer by day and with a personal practice steeped in meditative and occult spiritual interests, Chang’s songs take on an ever-changing experiential quality that combat songcraft’s standard operation as static object. This gives her music a hyper-present psychedelic quality without succumbing to the pitfalls of the genre and instead favoring the bizarre and otherworldly in earnest.

Chang brought home recordings from her personal computer to the Johnson City studio of engineer and producer Hunter Davidsohn (Sheer Mag, Frank Hurricane, Porches). Collaboratively the production took on a heavy and unapologetically analog sound. We can hear how this process amplifies the underlying emotional intensity of these songs, adding fuel to the fire of Chang’s already urgent expression. They improvised over each song with the constant influx of refurbished instruments in Davidsohn’s sprawling space, treating each track as an entirely unique maximalist thought experiment.

Frances Chang
support your local nihilist
Destiny is a Dog
tracklist

1. p much deranged
2. flower childs
3. i quit cigs
4. escapism
5. support your local nihilist
6. headless
7. intimacy
8. full moon after purgatory
9. solo tripping in the deathverse

credits
songs by frances chang

Frances Chang – guitar, vocals, percussion, autoharp, optigan
Hunter Davidsohn – bass, moog, wurli, drums, xylophone
Carolyn Hietter – sax on “i quit cigs”
Julian Fader – drums on “support your local nihilist”

Frances Chang Live

7/1 Brooklyn, NY @ The People’s Garden

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