John Francis Flynn: Look Over the Wall, See the Sky

First published in the March-April 2024 edition of Folk London Magazine

I was last listening to this album while driving to work on a bitter cold Colorado January morning, scarf wrapped up to my eyes waiting for the heat to kick on, and generally just feeling a bit sick of the world when “Kitty” came on. I didn’t pay it much mind at first - it starts off so gently, all droning chords and a soft and steady drum, that it was nearly lost in the frantic blowing of my defroster - but then Flynn began to sing.

By this time, I’d listened to my review copy of the album three or four times, so this song was not new to me. It was nice enough, I’d thought before, sort of emblematic of the album as a whole - Flynn’s warm voice rooted amongst electronic fades and white noise and intricately built walls of sound. I liked it.

But on this listen, I found myself sort of frozen in time for a moment, held in the song, kind of just hovering in it. So I listened to it again. And again. I was late to work.

This album always comes back to its songs. The arrangements, Flynn’s vocal lines, the production with all of its electronic elements - it’s all beautifully, gloriously, in service of the song.

“You can’t sing all the songs,” Flynn says. “Well, some people do, but you can tell if someone doesn’t connect with that song.” With Look Over the Wall, Flynn achieves that delicate and lovely thing of connecting with his audience through his own connection to the music.

This album was my first introduction to John Francis Flynn (I somehow managed to miss his debut I Would Not Live Always the first time around), and suffice it to say I’m sold.

Look Over the Wall, See the Sky is available from River Lea on Bandcamp: https://riverlea.bandcamp.com/album/look-over-the-wall-see-the-sky