L.C. Franke

Fri, Nov 22

L.C. Franke - Vocals Paulo Santos - Saxophone Ross Margitza - Piano Ryan Hagler - Bass JJ Johnson - Drums First Show: Doors at 7:45pm, Show at 8pm. Second Show: Doors at 9:45pm, Show at 10pm. Easy listening for anxious times, torch songs for a world on fire, orchestral pop for the algorithm age: this is the twilit milieu of L.C. Franke, whose debut album Still In Bloom, releasing July 19, builds a bridge between twentieth-century nostalgia and our modern alienation. Across ten tracks of pure mood-indigo music, inspired by the jazz-club savoir faire of artists like Frank Sinatra, Scott Walker, and Ella Fitzgerald, Franke’s barstool croon smolders against a backdrop of woodwind trills and string quartet swells. It’s a musical tonic that pairs equally well with gin and general malaise—light on the ears, heavy on the heart. Still In Bloom is the sound of midlife crisis turned spiritual rebirth. Recorded live in the room with an actual orchestra, and completed over just three weekend sessions, it’s both musically rich and emotionally direct. On “You’re Not Alone,” Franke takes your hand and leads you from a shadowy alley, toward a shimmering skyline that’s swirling with flutes and the simple reassurance, “Worst case / It’ll pass.” The mood takes a slightly more sinister turn on “Wish the World,” a sardonic tango about a soured relationship that’s underscored by spy-movie violins and vibraphone. And the album finds its bruised thematic heart on the title track, “Still In Bloom,” where a pensive piano melody and wintry strings provide the stripped-down bed for Franke’s late-night ruminations on the everyday struggle to find resilience amid the ruins. These are spellbinding, smoke-gets-in-your-eyes songs, rendered as sharp as a custom-cut suit, evoking lonely subway rides past abandoned automats, and those halcyon days before the Brill Building housed a CVS. ------ “Music You Should Know” - Rolling Stone “a cunning crooner and composer. This album had me instantly with its ambitious originality and shrewd songwriting, singing and arrangements” - Jazz Wax “Smoldering, sophisticated jazz-pop” - KUTX “smart lyrics that seek to pierce the heart of darkness” “rich melodicism and sophistication” - No Depression “ a salve of nostalgia mixed for modern anxiety, a balm between Scott Walker and Richard Hawley… an immaculately suave debut album” -Austin Chronicle