When I first sat down to do a Foy Vance episode, his most recent album was Signs of Life (2021) and I was working purely off recordings. Couple of things have changed since.
Foy Vance released The Wake on 13 March 2026. Seventh studio album. Final album in a project he set himself the night his dad died.
The story is this: in January 1999, Foy was playing a gig on Lanzarote. The next morning he was told that his father, a travelling preacher, had died of a heart attack the night before, while Foy was on stage. Foy decided then and there that he would make seven albums informed by that loss, and stop. Hope in 2007 was the first. The Wake in 2026 is the last. Twenty-six years, seven albums, one decision he made while completely fucking destroyed, and he stuck to it his entire working life.
from Foy himself. From his April 2026 Americana UK interview: "on the 30th of January 1999, at 1:30 in the morning, I got a song. By the time I'd pulled the whole thing out and had it written by about nine o'clock that morning, it turned out my dad had died. And on that day, I thought, I'm going to make seven albums."
I'll come back to that. Because back in October 2024, eighteen months before The Wake came out, I saw him live at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht with Bonnie Bishop supporting, and the whole evening rearranged how I think about him.
Four tracks today, three of which I'd already written about, and one which is here because it had to be.
Hope and the back catalogue at a glance
Quick orientation. Foy Vance, born Belfast, lived in the American South as a kid because his dad was a travelling preacher. Came back to Northern Ireland, settled eventually in the Scottish Highlands, kept the Memphis flavour in his voice. Self-released Hope in 2007 with cover paintings by his wife Joanne. Got picked up by Glassnote for the second album. Won the inaugural Northern Ireland Music Prize for Joy of Nothing in 2013. Got signed to Ed Sheeran's label Gingerbread Man Records in 2015. Released The Wild Swan (executive-produced by Elton John, 2016). Then the twin Americana records, From Muscle Shoals and To Memphis (2019), recorded at the FAME Studios and Sam Phillips Recording Studios respectively. Signs of Life (2021), partly recorded at home in the Highlands. And now The Wake.
He is also, it turns out, a painter. He did the cover art for The Wake himself, plus visualisers, plus a series of self-made films for the key tracks. Multidisciplinary in the way that doesn't always get him credited as such.
Track one: Joy of Nothing (the title track of the 2013 album)
The song that cracked him open commercially, sometimes I think this was the wrong song. The album won the inaugural Northern Ireland Music Prize. Q called it "soulful folk rock, in tune with prime Van Morrison." He's never quite escaped the Van Morrison comparisons since, and I don't think he's tried to, but who fuckin’ knows.
Listen for the moment about a minute in where the chorus opens up and you can hear him drop the Bangor in his voice and let the Memphis carry the line. He spends most of his recording career toggling between those two places. Joy of Nothing is the song where he stops choosing, and it fucks me up every single time. One of the better reviews called it a love song without being a lovely song. That frame holds.
The album also has Guiding Light, which Ed Sheeran sings on (subtly, in the background, because he was respecting his elders), and You and I with Bonnie Raitt. If you only know one fucking Foy Vance album, make it this one.
Track two: Sapling (single, 2022, with Rag'n'Bone Man)
A single rather than an album track. It dropped in autumn 2022 (right around when I first did this episode) and I underrated it at the time, because I was deep in Joy of Nothing and Wild Swan and not paying enough fucking attention to the new stuff.
But I get like that, I hold on to older tracks and the new ones can go swivel.
If you want to dig further into The Wild Swan, She Burns and Indiscriminate Act of Kindness are both rooted in the same wide, slow ache.
Track three: Wild Swans on the Lake (from The Wild Swan, 2016)
This one I have to keep in because of how it found me. I wasn't looking for it. Wasn't looking for anything, to be honest. It came on as part of something else entirely, and the day around me happened to be one of those days where every other thing was already lined up perfectly. Right people, right weather, right kind of wind in the trees - that's good shit. The track slotted in like it had been waiting for that exact afternoon, and I have not been able to listen to it as a neutral piece of music since.
That's the highest fucking thing a song can do, and most songs don't manage it. Six tracks deep on the album, between two louder pieces, and you have to be paying attention to land on it properly. So pay attention.
Track four: anything off The Wake (2026)
The seventh album. The closer. He started this 26-year project the morning his father died, and as of March 2026 it is finished.
I'll do a proper full blurb on this album once I've listened to it enough times to have actual opinions rather than first impressions, but a few things to flag now. It was produced by Ethan Johns, the Brit Award-winning producer who's worked with Paul McCartney and Ray LaMontagne, and you can hear that fucking pedigree in the room tone. The themes are personal in the obvious places (fatherhood, heartbreak) and existential in the surprising ones (the slippery essence of time, the unchecked ascent of AI). That last bit caught me off guard. It's the only album of his that has anything to say about the present moment as a piece of present-moment context. The earlier records sit firmly in the South, or in the Highlands, or in the kitchen the morning after. The Wake sits in 2026 and acknowledges it.
The cover art he painted himself. So did the visualisers and the short films attached to the tracks. The merch line includes a tee with the album art, a tee with a skull from the album, a hoodie that says Plato Was Wrong, and (fucking killed me) a Foy Vance prayer candle. I do not need a Foy Vance prayer candle. I am still thinking about buying one - cause why not?
What I came home from Utrecht with
A signed copy of Joy of Nothing. The original 2013 sleeve, with the bull on the front (artwork by his wife Joanne, who painted most of the early covers). They had pre-signed copies on the merch table. I was the right kind of weak. But you’ll learn the more you read, there is very little that stops me from spending money on music.
Mostly though, what I came home with is a calibration. The Utrecht seat was great. Beautiful seat, beautiful room, Bonnie Bishop opening - they’re dating now, and to be fair, they were great together on stage. Foy on for nearly two hours, very chill. He plays the songs, lets them sit, talks, tells stories, it’s not your average gig by a long shot.
When I first did this episode, I think I treated Foy Vance like a recommendation. Listen to him because he's good. I now treat him like a project. Twenty-six years of records pointed at the same loss, made by the same person under different production conditions. Hope sounds like a bedroom. The Wild Swan sounds like Elton John passed through. To Memphis sounds like the south of the United States. The Wake sounds like Scotland in March-ish when the weather is right. They're all the same person grieving the same dad. And the discipline he set himself in 1999 has produced one of the most consistent bodies of work in modern folk-soul. He decided what to make and he fucking made it. I can’t even stick to 7 days of drinking the right amount of water.
If you've never heard him, start with Joy of Nothing. If you have, The Wake is now waiting.
And I'm doing it again. 8 September 2026, TivoliVredenburg, same room as last time. The Wake era live. If you can't get on Utrecht he's at Doornroosje in Nijmegen the night after, then a full European run after that.
Laters on a menjay.
Z