SOMETHING CATHARTIC, something collective, happened when Mick Flannery played the first live gigs in Galway in more than a year, a spontaneous response to seeing such a thing happening again.
Mick was in Galway last week to play the opening two shows at The Grand Auld Stretch event at Nimmo’s Pier - one of the very few occasions he has had to play in front of a physically present audience in the last 18 months.
“There was a strange moment during the gig, when the audience decided to make a loud noise,” Mick tells me during our Tuesday morning interview. “It wasn’t at a natural point, during the end of a song, but it was this infectious thing that came out of them. It was a release that people had an opportunity to come out and see and hear live music. I think people were expressing their collective frustration.”
Mick will be back in Galway in September, this time accompanied by singer, Susan O’Neill, and an array of new songs from their forthcoming collaborative album, In The Game.
Mick and Susan will play the Other Voices ‘Courage’ concert in St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church on Friday September 3, as part of the Galway International Arts Festival - the same day as In The Game is released via Rosa/Believe. Indeed, GIAF audiences for this live streamed show will be among the very first to hear the astonishing new material the pair have created.
Two voices
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By turns funny, heartbreaking, bitter, and above all, deeply poignant, In The Game charts the long disintegration of a relationship, as a man and a woman fall out of love and into acrimony.
Both Mick and Susan inhabit the characters fully, be it the caustic exchanges of ‘Are We Free’ (“Now if I had said that/You’d be shouting down the wall/But that point’s forbidden/If it’s something you recall” ), a song Mick describes as portraying “people at their worst”; the remorse of the fight in ‘Lonely Wins’ (“Things said in one voice/Sound hateful in another/Are you alright?” ); and the point of no return, a clear break for one, and lasting regret for the other in ‘Ghosts’ (“When I don’t feel much together/When I don’t feel I can cry/Oh that’s when I miss you most” ).
The rapport between the artists is a key to why this album is something special, and what gives it heart and depth.
“Susan and I have the same manager, Sheena Keane, and she suggested our voices might work well together, and she was right,” Mick says. “We have a similar taste in music and an intuition for what melody works well in a given space. It was a good opportunity for me, and Susan, I hope, to write songs to a theme/concept. It makes the work easier to attack as there is a structure to it. I was glad of that, I enjoy having a set idea to mess around with and get to the end of.
“The fact they are duets, and have to incorporate another's voice, gives you another set of tools to play with,” says Mick. “You have to ask, ‘Where does that voice come in?’ and ‘How do I give it sense to what the other person is singing?’. I also had to write from the perspective of a woman. Because of the nature of the album, it’s about a troubled relationship, I was listening to people talk about what were the common things in fights.”
‘Air in the song’
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While he has made concept albums before (“My first album was a concept album, about small town life and two brothers trying to escape their shoebox town” ), Mick acknowledges In The Game is something of a departure for him, one which has allowed him to spread his wings a little more as both a writer and a musician.
“I don’t know how good I am at diversifying my musical style,” he says, “as I focus a lot on lyrics. I tend to do a similar tempo, so I did sit at the piano and set the metronome at 120 to get something at that pace. My natural pace is 76bpm which is quite a bit lower on the scale.
“This is different, as it’s for two singers. Also, Tony Buchen, the producer, arranged the strings and brass. I was too hands-on in the past with production and gave my previous work too much of a similar sound, but having someone else look after it changed things around.”
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Musically the album ranges from Celtic-Soul (‘Love You Like I Love You’ ), to Americana (‘Are We Free, ‘Blue River’ ), to country flourishes and indie-folk (‘Play With The Mind’ ), while throughout are piano motifs with mini-classical flourishes (‘Miss Me When I’m Gone’ ) that add to the sense of drama, emotion, and atmosphere, each track effortlessly, naturally, reflecting the changes and unfolding drama of the couple’s relationship.
Most striking of all, perhaps, is the closing track, ‘Ghosts’, where the now separated couple find themselves forced to share the same space, and featuring an evocative falsetto by Mick - quite a vocal departure for the singer.
'A howling ghost'
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“That was one of the earlier songs,” he recalls. “I was playing around with this verse that kept changing keys, and I was trying to do a literal representation of a howling ghost. I like that song, and the strings on it, the narrator remembering this festival, and not being allowed backstage to meet her. It's a simple moment that tells him where he stands.”
Post this album and upcoming shows, Mick says he has “worked up a good batch of songs” for his next solo album, with plans to begin recording in January. Indeed, the lessons from In The Game may be likely to also shape its sound and approach.
“One thing I noticed about Susan’s writing is that she is very willing to leave air in the song, for the music to seep through,” says Mick, “to allow the atmosphere to breathe without the lyrics over the top. I found that approach very worth stealing. I want to try that moment myself, and allow the listener to reflect on what is going on.”
The line-up for Other Voices ‘Courage’ is Anna Mullarkey, NewDad, Tolü Makay, and Mick Flannery and Susan O’Neill. The shows will be live streamed free on Other Voices’ and GIAF social media platforms. For more information see https://www.giaf.ie
