Maria Jacobson, front woman of Chicago indie-rock group Fran, recently did a podcast interview with CHIRP where she talks about how she became more interested in making music while attending Bennington College. “Since I grew up doing theater, it was always doing someone else’s work, and I always felt comfortable doing that,” she says. “There was a shift in college where I really started to resent acting because it felt like I was a pawn in someone else’s idea.” When Jacobson first turned to music as a creative outlet, she’d play guitar in private and sketch out pieces of songs, the way some people jot down thoughts in a journal. But in the past few years she’s made her art quite public, and since Fran’s first EP, 2015’s More Enough, she’s helped build the band into one of Chicago’s most promising indie-rock newcomers. This headlining set at the Hideout celebrates Fran’s new debut album, A Private Picture (Fire Talk), whose taut, thoughtful songs are further sharpened by a pristine elegance even in their noisiest moments. “Company” in particular ties together anxious, fluttering passages and raw, ferocious climaxes so masterfully that its surges stay cathartic no matter how many times you listen. v
On Fran’s debut album, front woman Maria Jacobson claims her spot as one of Chicago’s best emerging indie rockers
