Irish musician John Francis Flynn has announced a brand new album will be released this November 10th.
Look Over The Wall, See The Sky is the second album from the artist to be released on River Lea Recordings.
John’s new spoken-not-sung single “Mole In The Ground’ marks a different sound away from the more traditional folk sound of his debut album Would Not Live Always, which was one of our favourites of 2021.
‘Mole In The Ground’ is a cover of an American anti-establishment folk song recorded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928, in which “John evokes the rebellious energy he felt in his home of Dublin during a time when it was being ‘torn to shreds by property developers and vulture funds.'”
“I was drawn to this song for its almost hallucinatory, anti-authoritian spirit at a time when Dublin was being torn to shreds by property developers and vulture funds. Nothing much has changed there if I’m honest, but there’s always hope when people are willing to fight for their communities. I wanted to get to grips with the rebellious energy I felt in the city through the jagged arrangement and to highlight the visceral language used in the song by speaking the lyrics as opposed to singing them.”
Watch the video here by Peadar Ó Goill:
John Francis Flynn Irish dates
John Francis Flynn has also announced a big headline show at Vicar Street on December 2nd in Dublin, and a big run of Irish date, tickets on sale Friday Sept 15th.
Fri, Dec 1st – Set Theatre, Kilkenny
Sat, Dec 2nd – Vicar St, Dublin
Fri, Dec 8th – Roisin Dubh, Galway
Sat, Dec 9th – St Luke’s, Cork
Sun, Dec 10th – De Barras, Clonakilty
Thurs, Dec 14th – Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick
Fri, Jan 12th – Out To Lunch Festival, Ulster Sports Club, Belfast
Fri, Jan 19th – Brudenell, Leeds
Sat, Jan 20th – Celtic Connections, Drygate, Glasgow
Sun, Jan 21st – The Caves, Edinburgh
Tues, Jan 23rd – The Exchange, North Shields
Wed, Jan 24th – YES. Manchester
Thurs, Jan 25th – Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
Fri, Jan 26th – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Sat, Jan 27th – The Exchange, Bristol
Tues, Jan 30th – Concorde 2, Brighton
Wed, Jan 31st – The Dome, London
About Look Over The Wall, See The Sky
Often, to imagine Ireland is to fantasise about rolling hills, giants, saints and snakes. As John Francis Flynn says, it involves “a fair bit of paddywhackery and I hate paddywhackery.” The psyche-celtic album artwork for John’s second album Look Over The Wall, See The Sky, hints at this too though: a crystal goblet of luminous green Crème de Menthe resting upon a mossy ledge, perfectly encapsulating this imagined idea of Ireland in a way that is both funny and poignant. But, if you have to imagine Ireland in the first place, then you’re probably not too familiar with its reality: the towering glass giants of Google and Facebook, the unaffordable luxury hotels lining the Liffey amidst a homelessness epidemic and the highest rents in Europe.
To listen to Look Over The Wall, See The Sky is to witness history through a modern lens in a trance-like state. As expected, Flynn’s contemporary influences are sufficiently esoteric, from ‘The Heart Pumps Kool Aid’ by —__–___ to ‘The invention of the Human’ by Dylan Henner (a concept album about an AI learning to sing). However, he was also inspired by his contemporaries in the traditional music scene in Ireland, many of whom contributed to the album, as well as those outside of it, such as noise-rockers Gilla Band and Rising Damp.
On his last record, I Would Not Live Always, John was much more conscious of bringing acoustic instruments and weird synthesized sounds together as a concept. But now with his unique musical language fully formed, “I feel freer within that language to experiment and take it further without it being too conscious or premeditated”.
Album Tracklisting:
- The Zoological Gardens
- Mole In The Ground
- Willie Crotty
- Kitty
- The Seasons
- Within A Mile Of Dublin
- The Lag Song
- Dirty Old Town
