Name: Jana Bahrich aka Francis of Delirium
Nationality: Canadian, based in Luxembourg
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Francis of Delirium's new single "Real Love" is out via Dalliance.
Recommendations: You should know about Chaim Soutine’s painting carcass of beef paintings and you should know about Jan Svankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue stop motion animation.

If you enjoyed this Francis of Delirium interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram,. Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I normally feel a surge of energy in my chest if I really love a piece of music.

I like to listen with my eyes open and take bits of my environment and place them with the song, sort of like making the song’s story while you walk and experience the world around you.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I started ‘training’ in music from a young age. I picked up the violin at age 5 and everything went from there.

I don’t know that playing the violin helped me become an artist anymore than going to museums and interacting with art did. Being technically proficient at an instrument is just a tool and not always necessary in order to be a great artist. I think the violin did help me though when it comes to pitch and being able to recall and imitate notes. The way the instrument is set up is just ear training which I think must have proved itself useful, but we will never know if I would’ve had good pitch memory, regardless!

I think just listening to music and consciously taking in all kinds of art and connecting and hating things is the best way to train/learn being an artist.

[Read our feature about the violin]

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Music to me was a way to feel empathy I think. I really liked being connected to other people through their art and stories, feeling what they feel.

I connected with artists that really emoted their songs at that age, people like Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder that put their whole lung and throat into their performances.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

This is something I’m discovering and re-discovering all the time. I think I just am motivated to create, I wake up and I need it, it’s energizing and depleting and deeply satisfying to create something

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

I don’t think you’ve created the idea, I think it’s out there in the air and you grab it and see if it sits with you and whether or not you want to follow it.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I think that’s a valid way to listen, I think if the overall sound is moving, whether you realize it or not the chords and lyrics probably are too.

If one of the other is very noticeably bad, I don’t think you’ll be able to even listen to the whole sound, one bad thing will just be poking back out at you and distract you from listening to the whole.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

I love spending any time I can in nature. I recently got a little inflatable boat and have been sitting in it on the lake in Luxembourg up North and just reading and hearing the water lap against the boat and the trees rustling. It’s very peaceful.
 
From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

Any extreme in performance draws me in, from very quiet to very loud, as long as it feels warranted.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

Back in 2020, I performed a handful of my songs with a small chamber orchestra group. I worked with conductor / composer Pol Belardi who re-worked and re-arranged the compositions to fit in a more ‘classical’ art music style setting. The result was amazing, we had a french horn, string trio, basson, flute, xylophone, bass clarinet.

As I mentioned I grew up playing violin but also played french horn for a time so it was really special to have my songs recontextualized in that way.

Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I don’t have the patience to conduct scientific insights when creating music. I just want to get in there and mess around.

I will play with pedals and use my violin to try weird bowed sounds, but I like to move quickly and throw things out quickly and keep reworking instead of recording lots of things and then trying to find out which is best. I chop and save as I go.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

I like to have routine and be as organized as I can with my time and tasks so that I don’t go insane. But then I’m horrendously messy in every other way. In my room, with the art I create. It’s all about balance I guess.

There’s so much to learn, so much freedom to be found by trying to understand and feel music as best as we can.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

If you are able to be fully present when doing mundane tasks, I don’t know that it is much different. Sometimes music is just a way to process and release so that you can be more fully aware in your day to day life.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

Elgar’s cello concerto give’s me that rush to my chest that I mentioned earlier. I can’t really explain why, it just makes me feel like I can fly.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would love for there to be more people writing abstract and fantastical pieces of music. Songs with massive scope and ambition in terms of story telling and songwriting, all while being tasteful in terms of palette and sonics.

Great songwriting trumps everything I think, although I have massive respect for people who are innovators when it comes to production and sound design like SOPHIE.