0191402802115
0191402802122

Look Over The Wall, See The Sky

John Francis Flynn

Regular
£20.99
Sale
Regular
£20.99
Unavailable
Unit Price
per 

Format: LP

Cat No: RLR021LP

Format Details:

Release Date:  10 November 2023

Label:  River Lea

Packaging Type:  Gate Fold Vinyl

No of Units:  1

Barcode:  0191402802115

Genres:  Folk  Alternative  

Release Date:  10 November 2023

Label:  River Lea

Packaging Type:  Digipak

No of Units:  1

Barcode:  0191402802122

Genres:  Folk  Alternative  

  • Description

    "You can't sing all the songs... Well, some people do. But you can tell if someone doesn't connect with that song..." Unlike what we might expect, traditional music is not one-size-fits-all. Each song has its own story, history and characters which the singers must serve, rather than themselves.

    On his new album, Look Over The Wall, See The Sky, John Francis Flynn delicately unpicks these traditional songs and rearranges them with an emotional force that sometimes leaves them unanchored, floating in a surreal space between the past and the present, the analogue and the digital, between love and tragedy. In his first single, Mole In The Ground, a cover of an American anti-establishment folk song recorded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928, John allows the surrealism of the song to take centre stage, opting to speak rather than sing the words.

    His voice, too, lives beneath the ground of the melody, burrowing its way beneath hypnotic drums, dancing guitars, and sliding violins. By taking away the nursery rhyme-like melody of the song, we focus on our narrators' fantasies and desires, but also on "the weirdness of the song, and its aggressiveness. The last line is: I don't like the railroad man/ the railroad man will kill you when he can/ and he'll drink up your blood like red wine, and I wanted to get to grips with that emotion."

    Description

    "You can't sing all the songs.... Well, some people do. But you can tell if someone doesn't connect with that song..."

    Unlike what we might expect, traditional music is not one-size-fits-all. Each song has its own story, history and characters which the singers must serve, rather than themselves. On his new album, Look Over The Wall, See The Sky, John Francis Flynn delicately unpicks these traditional songs and rearranges them with an emotional force that sometimes leaves them unanchored, floating in a surreal space between the past and the present, the analogue and the digital, between love and tragedy.

    In his first single, Mole In The Ground, a cover of an American anti-establishment folk song recorded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928, John allows the surrealism of the song to take centre stage, opting to speak rather than sing the words. His voice, too, lives beneath the ground of the melody, burrowing its way beneath hypnotic drums, dancing guitars, and sliding violins. By taking away the nursery rhyme-like melody of the song, we focus on our narrators' fantasies and desires, but also on "the weirdness of the song, and its aggressiveness. The last line is: I don't like the railroad man/ the railroad man will kill you when he can/ and he'll drink up your blood like red wine, and I wanted to get to grips with that emotion."

  • Tracklisting

      Disc 1

      Side 1

      • 1. The Zoological Gardens
      • 2. Mole In The Ground
      • 3. Willie Crotty
      • 4. Kitty

      Side 2

      • 1. The Seasons
      • 2. Within A Mile Of Dublin
      • 3. The Lag Song
      • 4. Dirty Old Town

    Tracklisting

      Disc 1

      Side 1

      • 1. The Zoological Gardens
      • 2. Mole In The Ground
      • 3. Willie Crotty
      • 4. Kitty
      • 5. The Seasons
      • 6. Within A Mile Of Dublin
      • 7. The Lag Song
      • 8. Dirty Old Town