Michael Flynn wrote much of the new Slow Runner album on the old piano he learned to play as a child, tapping out melodies and writing lyrics during the five months between his father’s diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer and his eventual passing. This album, Yesterday Don’t Fail Me Now, set to release on Friday, October 11, is a beautiful masterpiece in its construction. It’s proven to be a difficult process to release the album because of the effort that’s gone into it and the headspace it returns him to.
The lead single, ‘Skull of Mary Magdalene,’ offers a glimpse into the nine-track album that blends organic and synthesized sounds through intricate musical arrangements, creating a soundscape that resonates and feels 100 percent Michael Flynn in its vision. This fall, Slow Runner/MEF fans will listen to the album with wonder and amazement.
“Skull” was inspired by a fascinating read from years ago that stuck with Flynn. “I had been trying to write something about the skull of Mary Magdalene for years after reading about it in National Geographic,” Flynn said. “Just one of those ‘wow, humans are weird’ things that fascinated me but took forever for me to figure out how to relate to it in a song.”
Recorded at Citizen Studios in Asheville, the song features Flynn’s longtime collaborator Josh Kaler on bass, Micah Thomas on congas, Hannah Seng on violin and banjo, and Whit Whitaker who mixed and programmed some of the drums. The mix of live congas and programmed drums, settled on synth pads that blend like the wind into the background, creates an atmosphere for the song that’s beyond anything he’s achieved on previous records.
This is the first album that Flynn didn’t record mostly at his home studio. He won the 20th anniversary of the NewSong Music Competition at Citizen Vinyl in Asheville, which had over 1,000 entries from all across the country. It just so happened that he now lives right down the road in Western North Carolina.
As the grand prize winner, Flynn received a fully-funded recording project at Citizen Studios, released on the NewSong Recordings label and pressed to vinyl. He made the most of this opportunity, calling in favors from friends across the country to record on the album.
Flynn explained, “When it came time to record the songs at Citizen Studios in Asheville, we tried to fully realize what felt like an ambitious and eclectic palette of beautiful sounds. Bass clarinet. Mandolin. Congas. Vocoder. Strings. Every creative decision was made with a goal of drawing as short a line as possible between the listener and the emotion the song was trying to evoke.”
The album was produced by NewSong founder and Citizen Vinyl CEO Gar Ragland and Slow Runner. South Carolina native Clay White, who played flugelhorn on the album, said, “It was awesome to go from witnessing Michael winning the NewSong competition and cheering him on to working on the record with him in the same building. He should enter more songwriting competitions because I’d wager that he’d win them all.” I’d take that bet too.
