Francis Harris

With Fifteen years of DJing at the world’s top clubs and over Fifty electronic dance music releases as Adultnapper, Sycophant Slags and lightbluemover to his credit, one might think that at 40, Francis Harris had reached the pinnacle of his career, or at least firmly established his niche; but 2012 marked a pivotal year for the Brooklyn-based producer in which his true potential as a composer, producer and label executive was revealed. It was then that Harris dropped his alias, stepping to the fore under his given name with his first full length, “Leland,” a poignant opus conceived as a requiem to his father. In seeking a more subtle and emotional sound, Harris departed from his tried and true methods as a solo studio engineer, forging creative collaborations that rekindled his long dormant interest in the craft of songwriting, live instrumentation and performance. The result was an album laced with piano, guitar, cello, trumpet and vocals by Danish singer Gry Bagøien, which was painstakingly recorded, mixed on an analog SSL board, mastered by industry veteran Joe Lambert and delivered as a triple LP on Scissor and Thread, a new label Harris formed as a platform for this highly personal expression. Along with platitudes from the electronic music faithful, “Leland” received unusually strong notice from the indie press; counting Pitchfork, Ghettoblaster, Magnetic magazine and The Village Voice amongst it’s supporters and thus recasting Francis Harris as an artist whose scope and ambition extends far beyond the dance floor. With newfound purpose, 2013 has seen Harris return to the club music arena with an entirely new approach to making music. Focused on the development of new artists for the Scissor and Thread collective, Harris has been collaborating in the studio and behind the decks with label partner Anthony Collins as Frank & Tony. Together the pair have released Five well received EPs of pitched down melodic house tunes in the “Frank & Tony presents… ” series which have featured the vocal talents of S&T staples black light smoke, Gry, Corbu, newcomer Julia and current sensation Bob Moses, a duo that Harris has been instrumental in launching to sudden and remarkable global success. In between touring and producing and managing this group of artists, all of whom are signed to S&T exclusively, Harris has somehow found the time to record his sophomore solo effort, this time, sadly, in reaction to the loss of his mother. “Minutes of Sleep,” slated for February 2014 release on Scissor and Thread, picks up where “Leland” left off, delving further into the subject of memory, loss and the expression of monumental grief. On “Minutes of Sleep,” Harris solidifies his signature blend of house, modern classical, shoe-gaze and noise, delivering his most accomplished work to date. The first single off the anticipated follow up, “You Can Always Leave,” due November 2013, portends the elegant and brooding mood of the ensuing album. Gry Bagøien’s vocals are once again at the fore alongside the heartbreakingly august trumpet of No Regular Play’s Greg Paulus on what amounts to the only dance floor moment on the album. This time remix duties were handed to kindred spirit Terre Thaemlitz aka DJ Sprinkles, one of the few artists operating in the dance space whose intellectual underpinnings echo Harris’ own deeply held convictions. To support the single and pave the way for the album release, Francis Harris and DJ Sprinkles will embark on a Six city US and EU tour in December 2013 with high profile stops in Brooklyn at Output, during Art Basel in Miami at The Electric Pickle and in London at Fabric before Harris returns to The BPM Festival in Playa del Carmen for the third annual official S&T showcase on January 10th, 2014.