Paul Farran (Montreal) is an artist and writer.
On January 14, 2008, he was in Kabul when two Taliban gunmen stormed the Serena Hotel. He escaped into the Afghan winter, covered in another man’s blood. Seven people did not. One attacker was captured alive, with the suicide vest he could not bring himself to detonate.
Stems from Darkness (2026) is the work that followed — a continuous project across a 12-track album and a companion memoir, centered on rupture: how memory persists, reshapes, and resists resolution.
Baritone-led and cinematic, narrative-driven and spare, Farran's work sits in the lineage of Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, with a modern sensibility shaped by Radiohead. His current practice spans album, memoir, and immersive narrative forms.
Drawing on work and life experience in crisis contexts across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, his work unfolds through sparse arrangements and a sustained emphasis on narrative and authorship.
He is represented globally for sync by Ray-On Music Services.
Prior, Farran released two albums as The Camino Side Project: North America (EP 2019), and of movement & music (LP 2018), recorded across eleven countries. These works explored longing, movement, and global encounter.
Before his solo work, he was guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of the Montreal alt-rock band Pacer (1996–2004).
