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Album Review

Johnny Flynn
Been Listening Transgressive Records

Article written by Paul D - Jun 8, 2010

Johnny Flynn

Johnny Flynn returns with his follow up to 2008's critically acclaimed debut A Larum. As we all know by now, the London nu-folk collective has been dominating the music scene over the past 18 months with Laura Marling (twice), Mumford and Sons and Noah and the Whale all taking it in turns to be the darlings of the national airwaves and have their images on various front covers of the popular music press.

Perhaps the least commercially successful of the band of brothers/sisters (to now anyway) has been Johnny Flynn, which is why his first album has generally carried the prefix "critically acclaimed" (hell, even I’ve done it here!).

2nd album Been Listening is going to change all that. Here is an album that will already have the Mercury Prize engravers twitching. The album is as broad as it is long, and with it taking turns to belie Johnny’s so—called pure folk loyalties, but then bringing you right back.

On A Larum we were introduced to what Johnny Flynn called ‘punktry’ which was his fusion of punk and country (obviously!). But towards the end of it we were dished up a more collective, bluesy sound in the track ‘Hong Kong Cemetery’. Well this was a portence for what was to come on Been Listening, which although it still has smatterings of country, carries more bruising guitar and brass laden melodies, somewhat as an almost intentional attempt to show the man has even more dimensions than we’d first thought.

The first evidence of Johnny’s new sound hit the listener in the opening bars of the first track (and first single) ‘Kentucky Pill’. So impressed was Zane Lowe on hearing this track that he immediately made it his ‘Hottest Record in the World’. The trumpet riff itself is worth the cost of the download. Think of Jack Penate’s Tonight’s Today (and not Paulo Nutini), and you’ll also get the calypso feel to the opener.

Lost and Found and Churlish May follow with more of a tip to album #1 and Johnny’s Shakespearean alter-ego, before we get submerged into 5 tracks of raw blues, doused with strings, humour and more opportunities to make the transgression (sic) from Radio 2 to 1 than you can shake that proverbial stick at.
Been Listening has been doing the rounds for a year or so, and is a stand out future single, with more brass and Johnny’s inflections bringing a full sound we having heard from these parts before. Barnacled Warship is onomatopoeia incarnate, the violin laid over the cello takes you around the seven seas looking for conflict and that may happen in the form of an assault on the singles chart should this album and the summer’s festivals launch JF towards the recognition he deserves. Sweet William Part 2 (part one was an ep - his only 2009 release) seems auto biographical ‘will you put down your fiddle young Willie and pray’, and is by far the most folk driven track, making it a refreshing reminder of A-Larum. The Water brings the inevitable duet with close friend Laura Marling, and it takes the listener gently floating down stream, spouting the supportive qualities of water than its danger – in fact this is a change of spiritual direction for Johnny Flynn given most of A-Larum is obsessed by death and funerals.

Howl is Neil Young in 4’45 of drunken blues. Again Johnny introduces the trumpet as a form of musical chorus which leaves you begging for an extended version – maybe at a future show?

Agnes is more of a folk driven hoe-down, until we hit my particular highlight, Amazon Love. It’s a ballad with sister Lillie played over piano and cello, a first for Johnny I think ‘Blow me home, take me in, hold me close’ beautiful.

Finally, and also most interestingly, we have ‘The Prizefighter and the Heiress’. Starting with gentle guitar accompaniment from the wonderfully talented (and soon to be superstar) Anna Calvi, this song suddenly switches to the soundtrack to a spaghetti western, Johnny riding through Deadwood with a Winchester strapped to his saddle!

Overall this is an album very much worth investing in, and a high chart position is expected, so many will buy it. Others will catch Johnny over the summer and jump on in. Whether the change in direction is sustained will be worth looking out for, and whether the Mercury’s look beyond his friends Marcus and Laura may well influence it….

Links:
http://johnny-flynn.com
http://www.transgressiverecords.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/johnnyflynn