Fran Lusty
Flight of Your Mind
Fran Lusty is a London based writer working the singer-songwriter scene, but don’t label her as just a “girl with a guitar.” If you dive into her work, you’ll hear a depth of tones and chord progressions that take you far far away from a simple strumming guitar and lone voice. That’s not her. What you have is an artist capable of creating exceptional soundscapes and stories through her ideas. Here’s our review of “Flight of Your Mind.”
Track starts with a brief fade in, and then we hear Fran’s unique voice go low, then high with the first phrases of the first. Right away you can tell you’re hearing a singer with not just great control between her head and chest voice, but a unique tone. It’s airy and soft in the upper register, warm and full in the lower. It’s very synonymous with Sarah McLachlan, or Harriet Wheeler from The Sundays (one of our faves). Can’t say she reminds us too much of one or the other, she’s definitely her own.
Sonically, it’s a lush soundscape with her acoustic, acoustic drums, some electrics and ethereal keyboards. It’s a waltz feel, but she plays a trick with her delivery in the middle of chorus that makes you believe she just laid down a measure in five or seven. Clever. We love that! We had to rewind it a bunch of times and count it out to figure out what she and band were doing. Chorus has some soft punches that help it stand out, and the organ tones throughout the song are absolutely gorgeous. There are some lovely rhythmic emphasis points in the verses that help accentuate the vibe and we love the way it ends, musically and lyrically. Soft a beautiful and soft landing. Production credit goes to Andrew Chappell and Luke May, well done!
We won’t interpret what we think the lyrics are about - it could be several things - and shouldn’t it be that way? Sometimes a new song comes into your life at the right time and attaches to you - for whatever reason - that’s completely unrelated to why it was written. A phrase stands out…. you heard it during a major personal event… it was introduced to you by a special person….. whatever it is, that’s the way we feel about “Flight of Your Mind.” We don’t want to know why she wrote this, we’ll love it for our own reasons.
Do yourself a favor and check out her other tracks. “Kiss Me Sober” starts in a similar fashion to this track, but has a beautiful build up and payoff. “I’m Blue” has a more electric feel, but it’s still a great singer-songwriter vibe and really great chord changes in the chorus. “When I’m Feeling Like This” is almost like a neo-R&B track, a very Maggie Rodgers, Kacey Musgraves, Phoebe Bridges kind of vibe. We look forward to what she’ll be doing next!