“If you want to be fearless, you’ve got to bleed,” sings Chase Frank on her last album, Winter Is My Summer. She reaffirms her well-earned wisdom on this newest project, The Midnight Manor EP. Hear it for yourself, and for your benefit, a back-story:
Chase is not new to this whole music game; she was formally trained in piano and cello as a small child, and was even third chair in the International Children’s Orchestra. Though she did not record (but did produce and mix) this most recent release, Chase went to audio engineering school and so has been able to record, produce, mix, and release her own music. At 14, Chase discovered the guitar, took some lessons, and the rest is… you know. Another landmark in Chase’s musical life was when she heard an ethnomusicologist discussing the magic in repetition, i.e., that no matter how often something is repeated again and again, each time is at least a little different from the others. This spurred Chase to try out looping- she even records and loops guitar parts live on stage.
The Midnight Manor EP is a sublime, almost portentous collection of Chase’s ruminations on life and its wiles; the music is blues-influenced rock with compelling drums, provocative lyrics, sophisticated arrangements, and mightily strummed, looping guitar lines. There is no room for questions about musical talent on this opus.
On Midnight Manor, Chase Frank fans may notice the addition of drums (absent in previous releases), which were provided by the lovely and gifted La Dawn Best (Squab). A standout track on the EP is “Bipolar Belle,” a rolling, shanty-like tune about (what else) a temperamental female (“queen of the mood swing”). “Doubt” is a tune that explores one of Chase’s favorite experiments in sound – repetition (and check out the rad drum solo at the end of the song). It’s on “Some Friend You Are,” though, that Chase seems to come closest to summing up her raison d’etre: between staccato guitar and drums, she snarls, “I’ll stick your veins with the venom of a song.”
After he sat in on some live sets with her, Chase Frank found her musical soul mate in long-time friend Ahmad Jamal, who has become a permanent member of the now-duo Chase Frank show. The two have been awing audiences up and down the California coast and in the Pacific Northwest, and plan to hit the rest of the country over the next year and beyond, while also putting together tracks for the next Chase Frank LP.
Beyond the music, Chase has never been and never will be afraid to go out on a limb in life. She’s had to make sacrifices for her own survival, and her determination shows in the way she plays. Fearlessness is an understatement; the strength of Chase Frank’s character comes through her music so clearly you can’t help but want to get to know her. Take a step in that direction by checking out Chase Frank on the road in a venue near you soon.
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