“Francine” – Brandon De La Cruz
Fingertips veteran Brandon De La Cruz returns with another of his intimate and tremulous gems. Possessing a whispery, minimalist style that can veer in an ill-fated direction in less capable hands, De La Cruz quietly mesmerizes, transcending the seemingly straightforward setting.
“Francine” launches off a classic folk-guitar riff, swinging gently into a subdued tale of (I think) long-distance love. De La Cruz’s minimalism extends to his storytelling: he’s short on concrete details, long on suggestive phrases. And, as I can’t help but continue to mention, the man is a master of using simple words to skip at the surface of deep meaning; here, the entire song, besides the name “Francine” and two exceptions (“between” and “apart”), is composed of one-syllable words. This is not as easy as it may look, and works with the gentle music to create a trance-like vibe. (De La Cruz’s Bandcamp bio notes an interest in Japanese haiku, which makes sense.) One telling, self-referential line comes near the beginning: “Words don’t say what I mean.” And yet they’re all we have to go on, to quote Tom Stoppard.
In and around the hushed and humble setting you may notice some stray sounds in the background. Towards the beginning, underneath the finger-picked guitar, an echoey string effect (0:12) hints at the tweaks to the audioscape that De La Cruz uses to ever so subtly distort the vibe. Throughout most of the song, if you listen for it you’ll hear a low ambient rumble that gives the impression of his playing in an empty warehouse or maybe an amphitheater. There’s a sound resembling a backward guitar loop beginning around 0:54 and continuing softly from there. Later, a couple of unexpected voices, with a “found sound” character, float in and out of the mix. De La Cruz reports that his inspiration in this case is rooted in his time working part-time at Mississippi Records in Portland, which puts out a lot of folk and country reissues; he sees the sampling as a creative way to collaborate with artists who are long gone from the world. The end result to my ears has the collage-like feel of something you might encounter in an art gallery.
“Francine” is a track from De La Cruz’s new album, Two Kilos of Blue, which was recorded in New Zealand in 2020, and released last month. De La Cruz was in New Zealand visiting friends when the pandemic broke out; he ended up stuck in there for a year. However inconvenient that might have been personally, it seems to have been amenable artistically–Two Kilos of Blue is the second album he recorded while marooned, and is a collection of songs he’d written over the previous ten years. De La Cruz is based in Portland; this is his third full-length album, coming after four previous EPs, the first recording dating back to 2010. He has been featured on Fingertips in 2011, 2013, and 2020.
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