About Francis Steel

Francis Steel was a prolific UK-based musician and writer. He attended The University of Leeds in the late 90s and was active in the Leeds music scene throughout the 2000s, playing in bands and collaborating with local artists. In the mid-2000s he created Cloudragonlabel, a record label he initially ran through a Myspace page and dedicated to his trademark ‘Shoegaze-electro’ sound, which blended shoegaze and post-rock with electronica and hip hop. This style was most prevalent in the music he produced under the artist name ‘Tiain Noone’, although he used many other aliases through the years to experiment with different techniques and genres.

Francis wrote many screenplays, poems, short stories and several novels which he self-published under the pen name ‘Francis Tiain-Steel’. During the 2020s he was working with a literary agent and publisher to revise some of his long-standing material for publication, including a novel about a convenience store which he based on a screenplay he wrote back during his time as president of the Leeds University Union Film-Making Society.

Following a psychotic episode which landed him in hospital during his first year at university, Francis struggled throughout his late 20s and 30s with mental health issues which frustrated and hindered his ability to take his creative endeavours further. During this time, Francis was in and out of the ICU wings of various hospitals in the East Midlands, but had periods of stability, the last of which coincided with his tragic and untimely death at the age of 44 in Northampton on the hottest day ever recorded in the UK. As a black man living with serious mental health issues, Francis faced frequent discrimination, obstacles and challenges from society. While these experiences understandably inform the darker aspects of his work and should rightly be given attention, Francis, by his own admission, was most interested in foregrounding an infectious dream-like sense of cosmic awe and possibility which he captured in song titles and lyrics such as ‘Everything is okay with the universe’ and ‘There is more music than stars’. Francis had a longstanding interest in theology and philosophy and was acquainted with everything from Christian theology to Gnosticism, existentialism, Taoism and contemporary theories of space-time in astrophysics.

Francis is survived by friends and family who wish to keep his optimistic, celestial spirit alive.

This website is currently maintained by Francis’ long-time friend and creative collaborator, Will Corner. Any online revenue from Francis’ work is directed to his family or used to offset the cost of maintaining digital distribution.