“An exciting artist to watch out for" - KCRW
“The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s gripping
take brings new dimension to the tracks” - COOL HUNTING
“Boundary-pushing alt pop” - Under The Radar
"Hypnotic energy that feels like a party" - Earmilk
“A new favorite” - Sweety High
Today, New York City singer, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist Miles Francis releases their transformative album Good Man, announcing a hometown New York show at Sultan Room on April 27. Sharing the final single & video for “Rainjacket” this week, Miles’ experiences during the project helped them come out as non-binary, resulting in works of gorgeous paradox: nuanced explorations of masculinity and all its trappings, presented in a sound that’s joyfully unfettered.
Tonight Miles will host GOODMANAGANZA, an immersive album release event featuring a gallery installation, video screening and live performance at Porter Studio in Brooklyn. Tomorrow, March 5, they will perform on the back of a pickup truck driving around NYC in celebration of the album’s release.
Playing into the album’s themes and storyline are previous singles “Popular” (feat. Lizzie Loveless & Lou Tides, formerly of TEEN), “Let Me Cry,” “Nature” & “Service,” complete with mesmerizing boy band clone choreography that mirrors Miles' own recording process in quarantine. “Everyone indulges in having an ego and wanting to be recognized, but men seem particularly bent on the power element — whether it’s taking up space in a room or leading a country,” says Francis. These were followed by remixes of "Popular" by Future Generations and “Service” from Overcoats, to love from KCRW, Earmilk, The Wild Honey Pie & beyond.
Produced by Francis and recorded in their longtime studio (located in the basement of the Greenwich Village building they grew up in), Good Man arrives as the most visionary and elaborately realized output yet from a polymathic artist known for collaborating with the likes of Angélique Kidjo, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, and Arcade Fire’s Will Butler.
As an artist indelibly informed by the kinetic energy and eclecticism of New York City, Francis drew immense inspiration from their hometown: “At the start of the protests and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, I realized the most direct way I could help was to get a drum and go out to marches and keep a beat for organizers,” says Francis, who soon assisted a friend in the founding of a New York-based collective called Musicians United. “In the beginning the goal was to get involved with anti-racist work, but the experiences I had and the people I met through the Black Trans Lives Matter movement opened up my whole world. It gave me a new mirror to see myself in, and helped me to find my own queerness and nonbinaryness.”
Francis finally realized: “When I’m in my studio, it feels like being completely free of the outside world, free of gender, free of everything except me. I feel like I’m finally figuring out how to take that freedom beyond my musical expression and bring it into every aspect of my life. Now I want to share that feeling with everybody.”
