Biography
Maria Jacobson records confessional indie pop under the name Fran, a style that echoes Angel Olsen and Aimee Mann while pulling creative impetus from Sheryl Crow, Arthur Russell, and her own earlier work as an actor. Releases such as the 2019 album A Private Picture feature characters and emotions that feel convincingly authentic. The follow-up Leaving, issued in 2023, shifted toward a more philosophical and self-reflective tone.
Jacobson studied piano and performed in school musicals during childhood. She joined various bands while in high school and college yet waited until after graduation to begin composing original material. A 2015 acting assignment in Indiana prompted her to learn guitar on her own, and the emotions surrounding a brief but powerful romance supplied the basis for her initial songs. After spending time in Mexico teaching English and refining her songwriting, she came back to Chicago and tracked those songs with Mike Altergott, a childhood classmate who soon joined Fran as guitarist. Drummer Raul Cotaquispe together with bassist/keyboardist Atticus Lazenby rounded out the group, and the band put out its debut EP, More Enough, in late 2017. Following roughly eighteen months of live performances and further writing, the musicians delivered the full-length A Private Picture, which Fire Talk issued in November 2019. Pandemic lockdowns in 2020 turned Jacobson’s focus inward and steered her lyrics toward philosophical territory; her grief and anxieties shaped meditations on belief, faith, the environment, and self-examination. The resulting album, Leaving, arrived in January 2023.
Jacobson studied piano and performed in school musicals during childhood. She joined various bands while in high school and college yet waited until after graduation to begin composing original material. A 2015 acting assignment in Indiana prompted her to learn guitar on her own, and the emotions surrounding a brief but powerful romance supplied the basis for her initial songs. After spending time in Mexico teaching English and refining her songwriting, she came back to Chicago and tracked those songs with Mike Altergott, a childhood classmate who soon joined Fran as guitarist. Drummer Raul Cotaquispe together with bassist/keyboardist Atticus Lazenby rounded out the group, and the band put out its debut EP, More Enough, in late 2017. Following roughly eighteen months of live performances and further writing, the musicians delivered the full-length A Private Picture, which Fire Talk issued in November 2019. Pandemic lockdowns in 2020 turned Jacobson’s focus inward and steered her lyrics toward philosophical territory; her grief and anxieties shaped meditations on belief, faith, the environment, and self-examination. The resulting album, Leaving, arrived in January 2023.
Albums
Singles
