The Retrospective

What’s one part Lenny Kravitz falsetto, one part Prince-like squeals, and wholly musically brilliant? Ladies and gentledoves, meet New York-based dance-funk band, Francis and The Lights.

Unless you’ve been suspended in some sort of sexy, decades-past timewarp where all male vocalists are electric soul-dandies, Francis and The Lights will bring a completely different sound to your earholes. The band, whose beginnings may be traced to Middletown, Connecticut and a little hippie paradise by the name of Wesleyan University, creates spare electronic funk inspired by Prince, Thelonius Monk and… grammar? Francis and The Lights’ enigmatic lead, Francis Farewell Starlite, cites Strunk and White’s language bible The Elements of Style as his inspiration for creation. A truly rigorous, artistic sentence should be freighted with dedication to simplicity and clarity of communication, Starlite argues—and the same goes for a worthwhile song. Listen to A Modern Promise or 2007’s Striking for pudding-pure proof that there’s got to be something to that analogy.

[vimeo 1597098]

“A Modern Promise,” the title track from the band’s 2008 album, invites a Jacksonesque moonwalk or some liquefied robot action. “The Top,” whose video treats viewers to some of Starlite’s premium dance moves, forces an earnest reckoning with one’s own jivin’ feet. Francis, a man of few words but many screaming fans, keeps meticulous e-track of his daily purchases, so if fine choreography and dulcetly delivered synth-soul isn’t reason enough to pop by the band’s website (and it should be!), then you can at least get a bead on the going price for a Vietnamese sandwich or a day’s worth of NYC cabs.

Francis And The Lights – A Modern Promise
[audio:modernpromise.mp3]

http://www.myspace.com/francisandthelights

http://blog.francisandthelights.com/

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