Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Frances Hope is the New Music Monday highlight!
Hope is a survivor of abuse who is open about her traumas and channels her experiences into music as a way to share her story and process her thoughts and feelings.
Almost a year after the release of her last EP, which she donated half of the proceeds made from the album to survivors of trauma, Hope set her sights on releasing two singles while in the throes of a recent heartbreak.
She says she was inspired by one of Billie Eilish’s latest EPs, Guitar Songs in which she sang two heartfelt songs over stripped down, acoustic tracks.
“For me, I had gone through a breakup and it hit me really hard because it was the first relationship after a really emotionally abusive one,” Hope explained to Victoria Buzz.
“That was the first person and healthy [relationship] that I took a chance on and tried to show up for again.”
Hope says it lasted three months before she was broken up with and left disappointed. Her latest EP, Breakup Songs, is a direct result of this hardship she faced.
She decided, with the advice of her friend, mentor and collaborator Daniel Martins, to get into the studio right away to try and capture the raw feelings that come with any breakup.
This is how she wrote the first of her two new songs, For a Moment.
“A lot of breakup songs start when you’re in either denial or anger, those different stages,” Hope said.
“You’ve had enough time to stew in it and cry until you find your inner Avril Lavigne and get all angry,” she laughed.
Related:
- Victoria singer-songwriter donating half her new album’s proceeds to survivors of trauma
- New Music Monday: HopeCity Waters delves into soulful folk sound on new EP
- New Music Monday: Conjure Hand uses rock and roll to tell stories of the Black experience
- New Music Monday: TK The Artist shares ‘fat and funky’ R&B sound with Victoria on new single
For a Moment came out as an ethereal ballad of pain and heartbreak whereas the second song Hope released was Catch and Release, a hopeful song about moving on to something new and better.
“When it jumps to the second song, you have to fill in what happened in between yourself.”
“[Catch and Release] is basically saying thank God you let me go so I could move on and find something better.
Both songs were produced by Ron Thaler, a producer who lives between Victoria and New York, who has won multiple Grammy Awards and has worked with artists like Alicia Keys, David Guetta and Lana Del Ray to name a few.
“Ron was the producer and the visionary behind this whole thing,” Hope told Victoria Buzz.
“He captures and produces my vocals and kicks butt in gear to get it right. I’m talking like, the first sung note in the first line of the first song, we did for like, seven hours.”
She released Breakup Songs on February 24th and it is available on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp.
Hope says all she wants is for her songs to hit 10,000 streams, and after just one month, they are just over 9,000.
Listen to Breakup Songs below:
As a member of the City of Victoria’s official music roster, Hope is looking forward to playing various city-run events through the summer with her next big show taking place on July 2nd at the Cameron Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park.
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
Hope says that CFUV has been important to her because as she began her journey as a musician, they were quick and eager to offer her opportunities that would help change her life forever.
“When I was in the early stages, playing at cafes and getting my music out there, I was lucky enough to be brought onto a radio show and played live on CFUV,” Hope lamented.
“It meant the world.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Frances Hope in the comments below.
