Francia Releases Next to You 

By Erika Nunez

On July 14 at The Space, Francia (formerly Eclipse) held their album release show for Next to You. The lineup was stacked with performances from The Red Sea, Jonetsu, Ugly Boy, The Musket Vine, and Laguna. 

While an instrumental band, the entirety of the album carries an intricate, yet smooth kind of movement that speaks louder than words possibly could. Next to You speaks directly to the body and is consequently impossible to listen to without dancing. 

Before the show, we were able to speak briefly with Francia himself regarding Next to You. He shared that the album was inspired by artists like King Krule and Hers. “It’s not the same genre as those bands, but they inspired me to pick up the guitar and just start writing.”

Regarding being an instrumental artist, Francia shared with us how much feeling and emotion goes into his songwriting, despite there being no lyrics.

“A lot of music needs words, but I feel like my music… it speaks a thousand words itself, you know, it doesn’t need more force. I express my feelings a lot in my music. If you listen to it, it’s like, damn… I can feel what he’s feeling, you know. Happy, sad, angry. Because all of my music has stories to it.”

We asked Francia if there was any song from the album that was particularly special and to no surprise it was “Next to You.” “Yeah, I wrote that one for my girl,” he shared with a big smile on his face. Other favorites of his include “Sundress” and “Pushed Me Away,” the latter being the song that put his music on the map when a video of it blew up on Tiktok.

Attendees were filled with energy from Francia’s set, dancing and moving along to Francia’s singing guitar riffs. When the set was over, fans begged for one more song which was unfortunately not delivered due to time constraints. However, Francia promises more shows to come. 

Francia: Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Spotify