By Jack

It’s mid October, which is the perfect time to see a Francis Lung show. His music is keyed to the moods of autumn: rest, change & enui. His hushed, bittersweet indie made the perfect soundtrack for a rainy Friday night.

That autumnal feel permeates his set in Hyde Park. Shiny guitars and Lung’s soft register produce a kind of bittersweet bliss evocative of a dozen things, but feeling like a permutation of Death Cab’s ‘A Movie Script Ending’ and ‘Blood Banks’ by Bon Iver, but veneered with an impeccable Pet Sounds pop sheen.

It’s gorgeous to listen to: Lung’s soft boyish voice makes a tender ballad like ‘Invisible’ pure magic. With little more than his own hushed vocals and a simplistic riff generating tension beneath it, ‘Invisible’ takes the breath from you. ‘Unneccesary Love’ spins a familiar story, but it’s grand and sweeping too. There’s a beautiful balance struck between lyircs that feel real and worn, and cribbed straight from the everyday, and the presentation of the same which feels dreamlike, romantic and woozy.

Lung punctuates the set with well received bursts of stage patter, and for those doubting his credentials even produces a somewhat unlikely sax solo: from indie-pop to Kenny G in a heartbeat. When the set closes on the aching, and (appropriately) dreamy ‘I Wanna Live In My Dreams’, it feels like a perfect swansong. Lung is producing some of the most gorgeous pop of his career.