NEIL FRANCES

A self-taught DJ from Sydney and the son of an opera singer from Rancho Cucamonga, California might seem like an unlikely pair. But when Jordan Feller and Marc Gilfry both landed in Los Angeles during the same week in 2016, NEIL FRANCES was born. The project's name comes from Feller's parents: his father Neil, his mother Frances.

Feller and Gilfry had actually met four years earlier, in 2012, when Feller remixed two tracks for Gilfry's previous musical project. At the time, Feller was running his own electronic outfit called Light Year, making club music informed by his obsessions with disco, Death Row Records, and French Touch. Gilfry grew up steeped in music of a different kind. His father, Rod Gilfry, is an internationally recognized operatic baritone. His sister Carin sings opera too. His mother teaches choir. Gilfry absorbed all of it, developing an instinct for melody and vocal hooks that would eventually define NEIL FRANCES' sound.

Their breakout arrived not from an original but a cover. In 2017, they released their take on Stardust's "Music Sounds Better with You," the 1998 French house classic produced by Thomas Bangalter and Alan Braxe. It went platinum in Australia and gold in Canada, racking up hundreds of millions of streams and going viral on TikTok. Years later, in a satisfying turn, Braxe himself remixed their track "Some Kind of Static" from their second album.

Their debut EP, Took a While, landed in 2018, followed by a second EP, Stay Strong Play Long, in 2021. The first full-length album, There Is No Neil Frances, arrived in January 2022. It was a 14-track concept record about an insect ascending into outer space to become a diva at a galactic ball. Their sophomore album, It's All a Bit Fuzzy, came out in October 2023, pulling from 80s and 90s rave culture, 70s funk and soul, yacht rock, and classic hip-hop.

Live, NEIL FRANCES refuse to phone it in. They perform with a full band that includes drummer Rhythm Luna and guitarist Greg Cham, with Gilfry on vocals and guitar while Feller handles keys, DJing, and live sampling. When they strip down to just the two of them, they bring a hardware-based electronic setup, using vintage drum machines like the Roland 808 and effects processors like the Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo. No playback. They have toured with Rufus Du Sol, Jungle, Odesza, and Empire of the Sun, and played Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Portola, and Outside Lands. In 2024, they launched Club NF, a side concept dedicated to pure dance music, reimagining their catalog as club sets.

NEIL FRANCES are signed to Nettwerk Music Group and based in Los Angeles.