Library Rock's Backpages

Frances Morgan

Frances Morgan

Frances Morgan is a music writer and editor based in London, who began writing for zines as a teenager in the 1990s. Frances was the editor of Plan B magazine, which was co-founded with Everett True in 2003, and is currently a contributing editor (formerly deputy editor) at The Wire. In 2012 Frances began writing 'Soundings', a monthly column about film soundtracks, music documentaries and sound design, for Sight & Sound magazine. Frances’s writing has also appeared in Frieze, NME, Careless Talk Costs Lives, New Statesman, and various academic journals.

21 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Arcade Fire: King's College, London

Live Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, April 2005

WE WERE LATE, and lost. We took the lift and arrived at the wrong floor. I asked a white-shirted boy where the band were. Which ...

Robbie Basho: Visions of the Country (Gnome Life)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, January 2014

ROBBIE BASHO's singing is sometimes written about as if it's a rather regrettable aspect of his work. ...

Björk: Vulnicura (One Little Indian)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, March 2015

The grand drama of the latest Björk album reveals command of texture and mood as her survival mechanism. ...

Born Heller: 12 Bar Club, London

Live Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, May 2005

FEBRUARY WAS so cold it was almost fun. Snow whipped round the corners of buildings, full in your face. Under the railway arches, I found ...

John Cage: David Grubbs: Records Ruin The Landscape – John Cage, The Sixties And Sound Recording

Book Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, June 2014

JOHN CAGE can always be relied upon for a good quote. Here an apparently lighthearted comment, in which the composer compares sound recordings to postcards ...

Can: Monster Movie/Tago Mago/Ege Bamyasi/Soundtracks

Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, September 2004

MY MEMORIES aren't sepia-tinted; they're midnight-blue and smile-white, fleet-footed but with ash on my toes and holes in my tights where I kicked off my ...

Chrome: Half Machine From The Sun (King of Spades)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, January 2014

CHROME's Alien Soundtracks and Half Machine Lip Moves were released in 1978 and 1979, which makes them contemporaries of Mad Max, Philip K Dick's VALIS, ...

Cut Hands: Festival Of The Dead (Blackest Ever Black)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, November 2014

THE SHOCK WAVES generated by Cut Hands' 2011 album Afro-Noise (Volume 1) have long dissipated. Ritualistic electronic music built around African drum rhythms is now ...

Keiji Haino: Experimental Mixture (Black Smoker)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, March 2014

HAINO'S FIRST DJ mix album slipped out late in 2013 on Japanese label Black Smoker, followed by a further three CD set of mixes, In ...

Jeans Team: Kings Of Neon

Profile and Interview by Frances Morgan, Plan B, February 2005

Baroque electronic antiquarians Jeans Team dream of a Berlin-on-Sea. ...

Mica Levi: Loving the Alien: Mica Levi

Interview by Frances Morgan, The Wire, February 2015

As a member of Micachu And The Shapes, Mica Levi was an archetypal underground pop star — then she wrote the soundtrack to Under The ...

Klara Lewis: Happy Accidents: Klara Lewis

Interview by Frances Morgan, The Wire, June 2016

The open canvases of Klara Lewis explore a landscape of found sounds, re-recordings, pop songs and audio byproducts. By Frances Morgan. ...

Liars: Mean Fiddler, London

Live Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, June 2004

SAW LIARS TWO years ago, uncomfortable on a big stage. They looked sharp and they played sharp. I liked it a lot. They looked itchy-scratchy ...

Joanna Newsom: Daydream Believer

Profile and Interview by Frances Morgan, Plan B, September 2004

Joanna Newsom is a new kind of folk heroine, plucking out spells and lullabies on 46 thrumming strings. ...

OOIOO: Be Sure To Loop

Profile and Interview by Frances Morgan, Plan B, June 2004

FOUR JAPANESE women are running through the Camber Sands car park, wrapped in dresses and blankets and ponchos, straight hair blowing in the east wind. ...

Plush: 12 Bar Club, London

Live Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, February 2005

HE'S SINGING guide vocals, marking the chords on a chiming Gibson. Wordless lilts warm him up and take us down; sweet meetings of finger and ...

The Soft Pink Truth: Why Do The Heathen Rage? (Thrill Jockey)

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, June 2014

I ONCE SAW Drew Daniel in his Soft Pink Truth guise provoke such a negative response from an audience member that he must have been ...

Tusk: Tree Of No Return

Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, February 2005

THE LINE between my eyebrows deepens, furrows, branches into tiny new rivulets of experience. My ear canals are bruised and my perfect pitch flattened (by ...

M. Ward: M Ward: Transistor Radio

Review by Frances Morgan, Plan B, February 2005

THE TRANSISTOR RADIO — best friend of the Shaggs ("My companion is with me wherever I go/My companion is of course my radio"), occult portal ...

List of genre pieces

Folk music field recordings in the British Isles

Review by Frances Morgan, The Wire, September 2014

Various Artists: The Barley Mow: Field Recordings And A Film Made In Suffolk In The 1950s Various Artists/Topic /The Flax In Bloom: Traditional Songs, Airs ...

Women's march

Comment by Frances Morgan, The Wire, May 2014

Compiling by gender can expand rather than reduce sonic horizons. ...

back to LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE