Johnny Flynn: Been Listening

Johnny Flynn is one of Britain's latest indie-folk acts, belonging to the Noah and the Whale-Laura Marling-Mumford&Sons "scene" (although he says they're really just a group of friends), .  
Been Listening is his latest work, and it sums up the main features of this singer-songwriter - who plays with the band "the Sussex Wit" - a slightly hoarse and soft voice, an array of various acoustic instruments, quirky lyrics and an almost childlike quality (think "The Moldy Peaches"). The title track is a haunting song - that's not only about music - which, along with "Amazon Love", shows the saddest side of lyrics that are sometimes melancholy even when the music is upbeat and lively (like in "Kentucky Pill"). Songs like "Barnacled Warship" feature Flynn on the fiddle - here with a motive slightly reminiscent of Dylan's "Hurricane" - and an almost country feel. "Sweet William (part 2)" is an example of his typically narrative lyrics (like "The Prizefighter and the Heiress") - in this case about a legend celebrating song and story-telling, with the accompaniment of fiddles that end in an Irish jig. "Howl" is one of the edgiest tracks, with Flynn on trumpet and electric (!) guitar, creating a more rocking sound that matches the angrier lyrics: "Stay in the light Joe / Stay with yourself / Put up a fight / Don't rest on the shelf".  There are two real jems in the album. The first is "The Water", featuring Laura Marling, whose voice blends perfectly with Johnny Flynn's, and both impeccable in delivering the simple message of the song "the water can't drown me, I'm done with my dying" in a way that's emotional, but not sappy. In concerts, Flynn has also performed the song with Marling's boyfriend, Marcus Mumford, of Mumford&Sons, in an almost as brilliant version. "The second high point also features a female voice - Lillie Flynn - whose delicate harmony adds depth to the heartwrenching "Amazon Love", which contains Johnny Flynn's best vocals, with a Tom Waits vein to them. The lyrics are his darkest to date: "Now quick to the cut are we waking / And seeing it all as the dream / The pillars that raised us is shaking / And Samson's wheel is the fiend".
The album also contains a second disc, with demos of five of the tracks, plus a version of "The Water" with Sofia Larsson as the female singer.
Johnny Flynn is one of the best folk singer-songwriters of his generation, and he has gained confidence and broadened his sound in this last effort, showing the full potential of the quieter side of British indie. His wonderful debut A Larum was considered "marvelous" and "buoyant" by Rolling Stone's David Fricke, and with this album it just gets better.

Laura Marling: I speak because I can

I first discovered Laura Marling while fishing through the website of one of my favourite bands at the moment, Mumford and Sons, along with other musicians of the most recent British indie-folk-rock scene. Her voice is a cross between Alanis Morissette and Cat Power and she's one of the most interesting young folk singers out there (she's about 20). I speak Because I Can is her second album and if you don't know her I suggest checking out her debut Alas I cannot swim. This one is quite a bit darker and edgier (the new hair - from blonde pixie to dark bun - should have warned us), with the lyrics dwelling on the gloom of approaching womanhood, love lost and death. Not that her debut - featuring titles such as Failure, Night Terror and You're No God - was a celebration of the joys of life, but all in all it had its moments of hope and generally was more on the melancholy side that downright dark. Her signature acoustic song is distilled into one, the beautiful and sad Made by Maid, while most of the time her vocals are backed by a band, making for a less intimate, but more varied sound. A new anger seeps through her voice on tracks like I speak Because I Can, along with a more self-asserting claim to be herself, in Rambling Man (Oh give me to the rambling man/ let it be known that I was who I am). Compared to Alas I Cannot Swim there are less up-beat pop-like songs (but don't be fooled by the music, with lyrics like this from You're no God: And you will never leave this place/ and you will always feel alone/ and you will never feel quite clean/ in this new skin that you have grown/ until your old and broken bones/ are laid into their resting place/ just like the rest of human race). Devil's Spoke is the biting opening number with traces of Irish folk music, a banjo and a pattern of descending chords that echoes Bob Dylan's It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding. Rambling Man is a personal favorite of mine, with harmonies that recall Cat Power, and Balckberry Stone goes straight to my heart like most ballads involving cellos. My favourite Laura Marling song remain The Captain and the Hourglass and My Maniac and I, from her previous album, but What He Wrote, Rambling Man and others come close and her lyrics remain painful but questioning. Besides, her latest work has no low points comparable to the repetitive Shine from her debut. Laura Marling is one to watch - and word has it that a new cd is in the making - following the steps of talented women folksingers like Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Ani DiFranco.