Anglo-Irish activist musician Luke Concannon has released his new album ‘Midnight Bloom’ and announced a special Nizlopi show at London’s Moth Club later this month. Best known as one half of folk duo Nizlopi, whose 2005 single “JCB” hit number one and deeply influenced a young Ed Sheeran during his internship with the band, Concannon returns with a joyful yet hard-hitting record born from resilience. The album follows three years of illness after being diagnosed with IBS and burn-out, a period that saw his creativity disappear and fatigue dominate his daily life.
His recovery began when he bought eight acres of Vermont woods to build a house for himself and his pregnant wife Stephanie, who was completing her Master’s Degree in Boston. Living in a small tent while constructing a yurt, Concannon wrote songs at 5am every morning as his creative spirit returned through physical work. “I’m a recovering perfectionist,” he explains. “I’m learning to let go and realise that ‘good enough’ is a better way to approach our lives. We live in an area with a rich history of back-to-the-landers who lived on the edges of culture, and yet still managed to shake up the world through community, art, and politics.” Soon after, Stephanie completed her degree, they welcomed their son Oran, and the songs became his first album in four years.
Soulful opener “Shine” addresses the hostility of workaholism and its effect on creativity, while “Stick Together” calls for unification amid current world events. Multi-instrumentalist Darius Christian, who has worked with Adele, Lenny Kravitz, Mumford & Sons, and Gwen Stefani, performs throughout the record, arranging and playing all horns plus various keys, bass lines, and harmonies. Striking slow-burners like “A Woman is Sacred,” inspired by meeting two women at a songwriting retreat and hearing about unrealistic industry expectations, sit alongside R&B-inflected tracks “Dance With You” and “Romy You’re Magical.” “Brother” takes a harrowing perspective: “This track was written from the perspective of a Ukrainian and Russian soldier on either side of the war. It recognises the madness of the whole thing, war leading to mass murder of people who are often our closest neighbours.”