Along with her sister Jessica, Jennifer Clavin has played in the great Los Angeles indie bands Mika Miko and Bleached. It seems like Bleached are still around; “Flip It,” their most recent single, came out in 2022. But now, Jennifer Clavin is branching out on her own, starting a solo project called dear francis.

Francis is Jennifer Clavin’s middle name. With dear francis, she’s making relatively introverted music entirely on her own. As the title implies, Clavin recorded lead single “touchdown (4-track)” by herself on a four-track recorder in her bedroom, singing and playing acoustic guitar. It’s a wispy, downcast track about a world of winners and losers, and it reminds me a little of Mary Lou Lord, which is a good thing. Here’s how Clavin describes the dear francis project:

You know the feeling of when you’re on a road trip with friends and everything feels new, exciting, and free but also intense and uncertain? Then life happens, and that feeling becomes so distant, buried in brutal reality — this project is about rediscovering those feelings, that innocence before you knew too much about everything.

Listen to “touchdown (4-track)” below.