FOLK
BY JIM WIRTH
John Francis Flynn
★★★★
Look Over The Wall, See The Sky
RIVER LEA. CD/DL/LP
Lankum circle trad maverick mounts the barricades.
“My approach is just being very respectful to the essence of the actual tune and then you can frame it however you want,” John Francis Flynn told MOJO, explaining the thinking behind his second album’s astringent brew of extreme vocal understatement and ravishing ghost noise. The Lankum associate’s complex take on the encroaching soullessness of the Irish capital, Look Over The Wall, See The Sky finds electronic static attacking The Zoological Gardens, while Within A Mile Of Dublin showcases Flynn’s lyrical flute playing before descending into a pounding racket. If there is harsh reality, though, Flynn offers transcendent loveliness as well: The Seasons takes on a luminous Bill Callahan pallor, while his closing version of Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town approximates Richard Thompson’s Dimming Of The Day rewired by Årvo Part. Quietly, unassumingly, Flynn deftly unhitches these songs from the shackles of their time and allows them to speak anew. Like the chalice of green liquid on the cover, intoxicating stuff.