Fionn Regan: "It's a different energy when you have a band and loads of people around; an ebb and flow on each side"

Fionn Regan was part of the influential singer-songwriter set that blazed across Irish music throughout the noughties. From the turn of the century, he began issuing a series of EPs on independent labels, before the release of his debut album, the Mercury-shortlisted The End Of History in 2006.

In the time since, rather a lot has befallen the Bray man. ‘Dogwood Blossom’ from 2011’s Acres Of Sycamore was featured in both lockdown hit Normal People and Shane Meadows’ This Is England ’86. Elsewhere, the video for the 50 million-streamed ‘The Meeting Of The Waters’ notably features Oscar-winning actor Cillian Murphy. In addition, Fionn has been sampled by Bon Iver, photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, and was made an honorary member of the Trinity College Literary Society.

O Avalanche, his terrific seventh album, is a great tonic for the depths of winter, invoking as it does the sunny optimism and positive energy of Mallorca, which Regan knows well. He began writing 100 Acres Of Sycamore whilst staying at the Mallorca home of Emmy-winning actor and long-term pal Anna Friel, who performs a star turn on the title track of O Avalanche.

Indeed, the Balearic Island is a place which Fionn refers to as his “true north”. However, it’s a rather dull November afternoon, between gigs at the Druid Theatre in Galway and Cleere’s in Kilkenny, when we catch up to shoot the breeze. It’s just Fionn and a couple of guitars, travelling the roads of Ireland, heading from joint to joint, on a long sold-out series of dates. He’ll be back this way, complete with full band, on a nationwide tour in the spring.

“I wanted the first shows to be really focused on the minimalism of the words and the music, that sparse cocoon,” he explains. “I’ve played ‘O Avalanche’, ‘Headphones’, ‘Farewell’ and ‘Island’, and as I go along, I’ll add more songs from the new record. There’s a feeling about the album where people are really responding to it, and it will be exciting to present a full band show.”

Fionn Regan - O Avalanche

For now, the solo format well suits O Avalanche, when you consider that apart from Friel’s contribution on the title track and co-production from Ian Grimble, the rest – acoustic guitar, bass, piano, harmonium, drums – are all solely Regan. I congratulate Fionn on the creation of such a mighty record, for which he thanks me warmly. Indeed, he’s an affable man and we get on like a house on fire, which makes hanging out with him a pleasure.

But what strikes you most is the purity of the artist within him. He discusses at length the intricacies of creating the tracks that constitute O Avalanche, a record unlike anything else in the Regan canon, perhaps in any canon. It wonderfully captures the topography, the climate and the very soil of Mallorca.

“There’s a cosmic quality to it,” he agrees. “The light quality in Mallorca and the luminosity of the moon is among the highest around the world. In some way, the songs bring that quality instantly to my mind when I hear them. The song ‘O Avalanche’, within the swim of all my other work, is a rare cosmic event. It feels like it’s one of my songs, but also it feels like it’s in this new space.”

I bring up the concept of psychogeography, which originated with Debord and the Situationists – the idea that our surrounds and geographical location affect our emotions and behaviour.

“If you grow up by the sea,” says Fionn, “there’s a feeling that it always stays with you. In some ways, you’re always in some kind of a tide, or a swell, or an ebb and a flow. It’s like the sea becomes a backdrop, if you’re a painter or a filmmaker, or a singer or a poet. In some ways, you’re influenced by it.”

Listening to the album on a loop, as I have been doing, I feel there is little distinction between the songs – that they work more as a suite of music. And the series of lo-fi accompanying videos for ‘O Avalanche’, ‘Headphones’ and ‘Farewell’ all possess a similar artistic concept – a swiftly moving photo montage.

“That’s a very wise observation,” Fionn agrees. “There’s a sort of a visual narrative that runs through the album. One of the great qualities of Mallorca is when you’re looking out at the sea, you see these lightning storms, and they’re epic in their quality and impact your memory. There’s a quality that has worked its way in from the elements of that, which sparks your writing. The songs contain a kind of bottled lightning, and they had this quality, a flow of writing where it just snowballed into a piece of work.”

The vibe of O Avalanche suggests Fionn is in a good place.

“Yeah, I feel really excited,” he nods. “I think the album is going to gradually build into a crescendo. I’m excited about building the live show and bringing in different collaborators.”

The spring Irish tour will be followed by dates across England, with European and US shows also on the horizon. When I suggest folk is hot right now, Regan is philosophical.

“I just write songs,” he says. “I don’t really think too much about where it’s placed in the overall arc of things. But I do feel people are really craving something real. Even when I played the other night, I felt an alchemy, like the songs were really alive. Because when you play to an audience, it’s almost like a collaboration. It feels like there’s some sort of return to artists who do things in a simple, strong way.”

I wonder does he mind being on the road on his own?

“I like it,” he replies. “It’s a different energy when you have a band and loads of people around; an ebb and flow on each side. Being on your own, everything is building towards the moment when you perform – you have to be energetically working towards that all the time. Maybe sometimes when you have more musicians or a band around, you do that in a different way, you can bounce off people.

“So yeah, you have to have a strong internal vision about what you’re doing, you have to be 100% present inside the songs. But also, sometimes the alchemy allows the songs to be the lightning rod of where that’s going.”

I reckon having a new album such as O Avalanche under your belt makes things a tad easier. To be able to channel a piece of art like that is incredible – it’s magic.

“Philosophising about that sometimes, it feels like a spinning wheel,” says Fionn. “And sometimes you just think, ‘I can’t believe I made that’. I feel so lucky that I’m a part of this wheel – that for whatever reason, I can spin with it. Obviously, it’s nearly impossible to articulate. But I feel these waves of gratitude when I can see things, even for a brief moment, from a different perspective.”

• O Avalanche is out now.