John Francis Flynn Announces New Album ‘Look Over The Wall, See The Sky’

September 22, 2023

New Single “Mole In The Ground”

Irish and UK Tour Dates

2^nd Dec – Vicar St, Dublin

Smart URL / Re-Order Link: https://johnfrancisflynn.ffm.to/lotwsts

Award winning singer and multi-instrumentalist John Francis Flynn today shares new single ‘Mole In The Ground’ and it’s video, alongside news of his new album Look Over The Wall, See The Sky, which will be released via River Lea Recordings on November 10^th 2023, and new Ireland and UK tour dates for 2023 and January 2024. The video was directed by Peadar Ó Goill.

A founding member of the band, Skipper’s Alley, with whom he has toured extensively throughout Europe and America. While supporting Lankum on their 2019 UK tour he caught the eye of Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee who quickly signed John to Rough Trade imprint label, River Lea. His debut album I Would Not Live Always subsequently won over critics across the board, including being MOJO magazine’s ‘Folk Album Of The Year’ and it led to him being crowned “Best Singer” and “Best Emerging Artist” at the 2021 RTE Folk Awards.

John Francis Flynn’s music evolves around traditional and folk material from Ireland, but that is only the starting point. On the first single from the album ‘Mole In The Ground’, a cover of an American anti-establishment folk song recorded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928, 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.”

As John explains, “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.”

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

Forthcoming Tour Dates [tickets on sale Friday Sept 15^th]

Fri, Dec 1^st – Set Theatre, Kilkenny

Sat, Dec 2^nd – Vicar St, Dublin