Portland singer-songwriter Melissa Francis is looking forward to setting foot on a new stage on Saturday.
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Performing for the first time at the Heywood Wood, Wine and Roses Festival, the 37 year-old said she has an array of genres to share with the audience.
Together with her band Sleuth, she hopes crowds will be impressed with what she describes as “soaring vocals with jazz and soul tones and dark jazz funk”.
The mother-of-three has spent four months writing and recording more than 30 songs.
She will perform a handful of tunes from her debut album Umbra Anima at the popular south-west event this weekend.
"I'm really looking forward to sharing my songs with audiences close to home," she said.
"We've got a one-hour set between 8pm and 9pm and I believe we're the last set before the big cover band from Melbourne plays, which I think is a great time slot."
The Portland voice coach has written more than 30 songs over the past four months.
"That’s about two a week," she said.
“I have three small children and a very long-suffering husband and thirty students.
"They’ve all been very very patient with me over the whirl-wind."
A classic pianist from the tender age of three, Francis believes it was this training that has formed her unique style.
“I think that’s what lended my vocals to lift higher rather than lower, as piano has a lower end on it,” she said.
"But there’s a whole stack of different genres on the album.
"My favourite song on the album is Make a Meal Out of You.
"It’s a pretty sexy song. It’s slow, funk.
"It belongs on the soundtrack of Fifty Shades of Grey or maybe a Twilight movie.
"It’s pop but it’s got teeth and that appeals to me. It’s got a bit of edge to it."
Francis said she strives to make all of her songs have their own uniqueness.
"Empty Room for example is like a Nine Inch Nails slash trance song so it's different.
"Knife edge is electronica and then you’ve got quirky folk, In the Dark is like a guitar-driven folk pop song with a lot of vocal harmonies."
"Storm in a Teacup is like classical jazz with operatic vocals over the top.
“The beauty of this album for me is that it’s art for arts sake.”