Johnny Flynn’s Sillion is a strange, affecting and beautifully realised album, one with many hidden (and manifest) depths. Go and listen.

After four years, Johnny Flynn makes a very welcome return with his fourth album (give or take a live CD and soundtrack) with Sillion – an old English word which means the thick, voluminous, and shiny soil turned over by a plough.

And it’s a particularly apt title, as Johnny’s songs dig through the dirt and detritus of everyday life revealing a shiny life-giving loam under the surface (while still sounding like it refers to an ancient mythical beast, perhaps that figure depicted on the cover?).

But the time between releases does not represent a furrow period for Flynn. Indeed it’s been a time of immense creativity and acclaim, just not in recorded music. He’s acted and scored films, starred in a TV series, and performed in stage plays. In fact, the last time I saw Flynn was as a boy player at London’s Globe Theatre starring as Lady Anne opposite Mark Rylance in Richard III. And very good he was too. [ . . . ]

Read More at: Johnny Flynn: Sillion (Album Review) | Folk Radio UK