Look Over the Wall, See the Sky

Speaking to Songlines in 2021, Irish folk singer John Francis Flynn described his debut album, I Would Not Live Always, as “an exploration of how different genres might fit with traditional music.” If the debut was an exploration, then on follow up, Look Over the Wall, See the Sky, he shares the spoils of his discoveries.

Lead single ‘Mole in the Ground’ offers a psych-fuelled take on Appalachian folklorist Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s anti-authoritarian ballad, and wouldn’t sound entirely out of place on a Grizzly Bear album, while instrumental track, ‘Within a Mile of Dublin’, sees tin whistles and fiddles segue into a squalling electronic soundscape, bulked up with rumbling percussion and far-off vocal loops. For all the talk of messing with tradition, Flynn still stays true to much of the source material – ‘The Zoological Gardens’ is a simple rendition of the Dominic Behan song set against an encroaching storm of synths, and Flynn unearths fierce gnaws of nostalgia from a duo of Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger originals (‘The Lag Song’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’). But it’s where Flynn matches his musical influences with his current interests that you realise the singularity of his sound.