The platinum-selling Mick Flannery albums White Lies and Red to Blue will be available on vinyl for the first time ever via Universal Music. The releases come just weeks ahead of Mick Flannery’s sold-out shows at Whelan’s Dublin on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st December, presented by Singular Artists.
About White Lies
White Lies is the second studio album released by singer-songwriter Mick Flannery.
The album was released on September 12, 2008, achieving a top ten position on the Irish Albums Chart and featuring prominently on national radio stations. White Lies went on to go platinum in Ireland. It also received a nomination for the Choice Music Prize. When The Irish Times placed Flannery in a list of "The 50 Best Irish Acts Right Now" it published in April 2009 it referenced the album White Lies in its comments. In 2008, Flannery made a televised appearance on Other Voices. The reaction he received was positive, and Flannery was later described by one reviewer as the "where's he been hiding?" act of that series. There were calls for him to receive his own episode of the show. On the day of the album's release Flannery performed the track ‘Tomorrow's Papers’ on The Late Late Show, followed by a nationwide tour of Ireland after the release of White Lies.
About Red to Blue
After the release of White Lies, Mick and band toured Ireland extensively for what, Mick openly admits, may have been too long a period. “The songwriting suffered and lacked originality because of lack of time off”.
When Mick did finally get off the road, he went into studio in Killarney, with Tony O’Flaherty, but with so few songs to work with, only ‘Gone Forever’ lasted to make the album. Mick and band decamped to Wexford in January 2010, to Purple Crow studios, where they recorded day and night. “A good deal of the songs were written here while staying in the house come studio run by Donal Byrne,” says Mick. “Bassist Brian Hassett, guitarist Hugh Dillon, violinist Karen O’Doherty, singer Yvonne Daly and drummer Christian Best were all influential in the arrangement and styling of the songs.” From these sessions came ‘Heartless Man’, ‘Ships in the Night’, ‘Lead Me On, Up On That Hill’, ‘Nasty Weather’, ‘If I Go On’, and ‘Get That Gold’. At this point there were close to thirty songs in all but still no sign of a finished album.
In between recording sessions and live shows, Mick made two trips to the America. The first was to Boston, in late 2010, where he stayed with Declan Lucey and Dave Farrell, from the band Rubyhorse. There he wrote two of the songs that made the album, ‘No Way To Live’ and ‘Boston’. Having seen the benefits of getting away for a while, he made another trip to America in 2011, this time to Nashville, where he wrote ‘Keepin’ Score’ and finished title track, ‘Red to Blue’, which he initially started in Boston, with the help of Declan Lucey.
By this time Mick was feeling the pressure, mostly from himself, to release another album. He returned to Cork, where he, again, teamed up with Christian Best, who, Mick says, was key to bringing this album to fruition. With his work ethic and production/engineering ability, the new songs were recorded and the old songs improved at Monique studios.
Recording finished in late November 2011 with the help of C.S.L. Parker and the Vanbrugh string quartet, and also the help of a brass section led by Paul Dunlea. The songs now in the can, the files were sent to Ryan Freeland to mix and master. Freeland has, in the past, worked with Ray LaMontagne, Aimee Mann, Joe Henry, Grant-Lee Phillips, Son Volt, Jim White, and Loudon Wainwright III, among others.
Red To Blue was released on March 30th, 2012.
Both albums will be available on 1LP on Friday, 9th December 2022. White Lies will be on 180g white coloured vinyl and Red to Blue will be on 180g ultra blue coloured vinyl.
