What happens when the line between dreams and reality becomes blurrier as days go by? To some, the idea might be scary, but others, like Anna Francesca aka Beaks, use this to create music that’s hauntingly beautiful. The Vienna-born artist has just performed at ESNS, the European festival offering a valuable platform to emerging voices that need to be heard, and that celebrated its fortieth birthday this edition.
Leaning into shoegaze, electronic, rock, and grunge, Beaks is a musical project that’s just getting started but has a clear path ahead. But it wasn’t always like that; instead, the singer-songwriter has always had an affinity for writing and expressing herself through poetry rather than music scores. But when combining the two, she’s found her superpower, a new side to herself and her creativity. Today, we sit down with her to discuss pre-show rituals, bizarre dreams, and fashion.
Hey Anna Francesca, nice to speak with you. What was the first thing you did when you woke up today?
Check if I was really awake or still dreaming. I am not joking in my songs when I sing about dreams and reality and stuff, the difference is so hard to tell sometimes. Tonight, I dreamed of standing on top of a tower contemplating to jump because I didn’t know if I would die or just wake up. Especially lately, my music is haunting me in my sleep, I keep having really bizarre dreams that involve my unreleased songs playing over speaker systems in strange empty parks and playgrounds.
Your 2025 photo dump says: “2025 was bittersweet and I want to thank everyone who was there with me, my friends who’s hearts and doors were always open, my band, everyone who supported me and everyone who listened to my music.” What are your expectations going into 2026?
As long as my family and I stay healthy, I am pretty pleased. Other than that, it feels like I am biting down on a piece of metal right now, like my teeth are cold and sore and my tongue’s bleeding but I won’t let go. I will keep going until I am where I want to be and then I will go further.
You’ll be participating in the prestigious ESNS festival — congratulations! What are your expectations going into it? Do you have any specific goals or intentions?
Thank you! My intentions are to have fun and play a good show.
How do you prepare before a concert? Is there any ritual or object that contributes to setting your mindset in the right place?
I say, you got this bitch!, out loud to myself, usually in front of a mirror and ideally with no one else around. Then I go hug my band.
The festival offers a platform to foster European talent, which is very important in today’s globalised, fast-paced world. How do you think projects like this contribute to keeping the music industry exciting and new?
There are so many incredibly talented people out there, people who are much more talented than me, and I wish they all had a chance to be seen and heard. What is often underestimated is the money you need to record music and travel to concerts. I’m lucky, and even so, it’s not always easy, but there are so many independent artists who will never get a chance like I do just because I can afford to pay for tickets for my band and myself to travel to Groningen (ESNS).
You’re Austrian, and I guess you live in Vienna. It’s been voted the “most liveable city in the world” the last few years, do you agree with that?
Vienna is beauty, Vienna is grace, Vienna is a demon. I love this city infinitely but it has the annoying habit of making you forget how to move, so you easily end up dreaming away, paralysed.
If I’m not wrong, you explored poetry before music. Do you remember how this attraction started?
All I did as a kid was read, and it probably made me start the writing thing. At the age of ten, I printed out all of my poems, put them in a folder, and gave them to my parents for Christmas. As a teenager, that’s when I got into the whole angsty 4 am thing — all of my feelings spilled out over pages at night, and there was a lot of them.
One might argue that writing poems doesn’t differ much from writing lyrics — especially since Leonard Cohen was awarded a Literature Nobel Prize, for example. How do you see that relationship? Do you compartmentalise your writings depending on whether they have to be sung or just read?
Wherever I go, I carry my notebooks. I constantly write and I do it very intuitively, usually without thinking about form or structure. When I go to the studio, I take my notebooks with me and use them as kind of an idea library. Everyone works differently — I know of people who are very bound to schemes and structures, or who have to make the text work for the instrumental. I like to make the instrumental work for the text.
So far, you’ve mostly released songs and a three-track EP. Do you feel ready for a bigger project, or do you prefer to keep exploring music song by song?
I have been working on something over the summer and I can’t wait to show you soon :)
I love Venom, your latest release. The whispers make it so sensual and mysterious, it has incredible aura. It feels like you’re telling a secret to your listeners. Could you tell us more about how did it come to be?
Thank you, I’m happy you like it! We recorded Venom in a house in the mountains in the very west of Austria. It is a magical place and I think that magic might have leaked into the song. It was a pitch black night and so quiet, all you could hear were the whispers of the spirits and the wind.
Some of the electronic bases remind me of Crystal Castles. What artists did you listen to the most growing up?
As a kid I didn’t really listen to a lot of music, I mostly read books. My first CD was the album Lebe Lauter by Christina Stürmer, an Austrian Artist. When I was a teen, I liked alternative music like My Chemical Romance and Blink-182, but also indie — I loved the Kooks. Around the age of seventeen, I entered my drum and bass phase. After that, I explored the music of the 60s and 70s. All in all, it’s a journey I’m still on, I enjoy discovering new stuff a lot.
Scrolling through your Instagram, I’ve fallen in love with your style: grunge, relaxed, effortlessly cool, versatile. What’s your relationship with fashion like, and how do you use it as another outlet for your creativity and self-expression?
Just like for a lot of people, it helps me to feel comfortable with who I am that day. It underlines my personality. I think of it like: people wear tattoos and that’s how I wear clothes, only they’re not permanent. Sometimes I plan out an outfit for hours or days, and sometimes I just throw on something impulsively, but in the end, it always reflects who I am in a way and I want people to see that.
