FRANCES LUKE ACCORD

LLC partner, music and art director, lead writer, singer/multi-instrumentalist performer

"...AN ECHO OF SIMON & GARFUNKEL, THE QUIRKY WEIRDNESS OF SUFJAN STEVENS, AND THE MELODIC PROGRESSION OF JOSH RITTER...FLA HAVE TAKEN ALL OF THIS AND TURNED IT INTO SOMETHING ENTIRELY UNIQUE."

- PURE M MAGAZINE

BIO:

When Nicholas Gunty and Brian Powers put their songs and voices together, there is a delicate magic that commands the room to attention. The duo is known as Frances Luke Accord, and they are what NPR’s Mountain Stage calls “the definition of lean-in music.” Their soft, contemplative vintage of indie-folk gestures toward a timelessness that honors the Simon & Garfunkel comparisons but pushes beyond into the world of Bon Iver, Jose Gonzalez, and progressive folk music. 

Both raised in South Bend, IN, Gunty and Powers met and began performing together during their time at the University of Notre Dame. Their first release, Kandote, was a bold intercultural collaboration with the Barefoot Truth Children’s Choir in Uganda, a not-for-profit effort which continues to support the choir to this day. Relocating to Chicago in 2013, the duo honed their songwriting craft while releasing two more self-produced EPs, laying the groundwork for their breakthrough debut full-length, Fluke, in 2016. This immersive, philosophically rich album set them off on their first national tour, which included support dates with Darlingside, Anaïs Mitchell, and The Ballroom Thieves.

A remote band since 2017, the duo’s DIY ethos has remained strong since Fluke. Still self-managed and self-produced, the duo has released two more EP’s: Silver & Gold (2019) and Sunnyside (2021)—the latter under their new label, Two-Dale Records—in addition to their long-awaited sophomore LP, Safe In Sound (Tone Tree Music / Two-Dale Records), out now. 

Co-produced with Don Mitchell of Darlingside, Safe In Sound is a spacious and deeply textured indie folk record forged during COVID. A pulsing collection of sing-along earworms, it delivers a front-and-center view of the band’s signature tenor duo harmonies. With lyrics that often reflect the exasperation of artists struggling to hang on in a pandemic-worn industry, the album features a number of guest appearances (Darlingside, Liz Chidester, Yeshua, Chris Dupont, and Katie Van Dusen) as well as the fan favorites, "Maria," "This Morning," "In My Life," and "Dust to Dust."