Francesca Heart is a Milan-based musician, dancer, and somatic therapist. Praised by Pitchfork for its “dazzling, hallucinogenic visions,” her work has earned her a devoted following and established her as a bold new voice in electronic and experimental music.
ESSENCE : SENSATION finds Francesca Heart further refining her craft. Inspired by dancefloor euphoria, new age pioneers, and Mediterranean mythos, her fifth album offers drifting, sensorial compositions that soothe the mind and stir the imagination.
Sources artists
on influences, creative roots, inspirations, rituals and their releases on the
label.
Photography by: Matteo Strocchia & Marco Servina, Volkan Yenel
Words by: Jamie Collins-Adams & Will Lynch
Mesmerizing Spaces
Francesca Heart’s music is like a dream that,
after waking up, you wish you could fall back into: emotionally stirring,
beautifully mysterious, vividly surreal. Drawing inspiration from Mediterranean
myths, somatic experience and a blend of new age and progressive electronic
music, her drifting compositions open up transformative spaces that calm
the nerves and nourish the imagination.
“I wanted to move away from the idea of meditation
music as passive or purely calming,” she says.
“For me, the real transformation comes when sound holds both rest
and renewal, when it carries imagination and energy at the same
time.” ⬤
This duality is at the heart of “Essence Dance
,” one of her tracks for Sources. The piece was inspired
by the unique feeling you get watching a sunrise after a long
night of dancing. Its textures invite listeners into that liminal
state: the calm of the morning with the afterglow of dance floor
euphoria. ⬤
“The question was always: how can movement and healing exist
together?”
“Curiosity pushed me from spacious atmospheres into rhythm.”
Ecstatic Parties, Transformative Rituals
Francesca usually begins her musical process by reinhabiting
moments of lived experience, or conjuring imaginary spaces in her
mind’s eye. Her youth was defined by dramatic contrasts, moving
between the bustle of Milan and the calm of her grandmother’s
home in Calabria. This back-and-forth still shapes her work today. In Heart’s
records, traces of rhythm emerge with only a hint of percussion.
Sustained tones give way to gentle arpeggios. Stillness and movement
form an elegant dance, in the music and the mind of the listener. ⬤
The mythology of the Mediterranean adds another dimension
to Heart’s records, drawing a connection from the present
to a distant, half-imagined past. “For me, mythology
has lost a place in our life,” she says. “The iconography
of our folklore is so rich and ritualistic; ecstatic parties,
transformative rituals, devotional acts. There’s a lot of symbolism
going on with mermaids; a woman’s sexuality combined with
danger and the sea. I’m really into the poetic dimension of this
world.” ⬤
California and Brazil are key influences, too. The former
because it’s home to many of her friends and Leaving Records,
a champion of her music so far, the latter because of a musical
tradition that is, for her, is beyond comparison.
“If I had to say my top music country,
I would say Brazil,” she says. “What I find really
special is that it’s both spiritual and
domestic.” ⬤
Opening new dimensions
A core evolution in Francesca’s music
has been her relationship with rhythm. Earlier pieces were purely ambient
soundscapes. Over time, she found that pulse and momentum could deepen the
energy she was trying to create.
Take “Cascade Sensation.” As Francesca
made this one, she pictured dancers moving in slow motion, their arms
and shoulders glistening with sweat, an image inspired in part
by David LaChapelle’s documentary Rize. The music swells and pulses,
lulling us into a groove so gentle it’s barely there.
⬤
Working with the iconic choreographer Anna Halprin at the
Tamalpa Institute deepened the role of movement in her music. “Curiosity
pushed me from spacious atmospheres into rhythm,” she says. “The
question was always: how can movement and healing exist together?”
On her first record for Sources, Francesca answers
her own question. ESSENCE : SENSATION, a collection of tracks recorded
in Calabria, Italy, guides us through the delicate space between
motion and stillness, rest and rhythm, meditation and movement. It is a record
not just to soothe the mind, but to set it in motion.
⬤
“These tracks can create a space where listeners feel energized and
relaxed at the same time.”
Francesca Heart’s music merges movement, sound, and myth. Based in Milan, she channels her background in dance and bodywork into immersive sonic environments that reflect both physical intuition and emotional depth.
Francesca’s compositions balance organic textures with electronic shimmer, inviting listeners into dreamlike spaces where rhythm, breath, and sensation intertwine. Each project unfolds like a journey inward, revealing subtle shifts in mood and awareness.
Heart’s practice extends beyond the studio. Through performance and collaboration, she explores how sound can nurture presence and transformation, treating music as both an artistic and therapeutic act.
With a growing international audience, she continues to expand her language of sound, motion, and mindfulness - crafting experiences that resonate on both a sensory and spiritual level.
