FACTORIES - DEBUT SOLO ALBUM OUT NOW on Bandcamp. Factories. Once the epicentre of many industrial communities. I grew up in the North of England, on a council estate, surrounded by working class people, many of whom worked in factories. I used to wonder about their way of getting through the day, coping with the routine. Yet within those regimented restrictions of movement and ambition, there was perhaps a comforting familiarity for some of those who worked there. You may have lived and worked in close proximity to your assembly line neighbour, known all about them, but did you? The language, conformity and norms of the places no doubt prevailed.
A chance at further education and a few supportive voices helped me navigate a path away from that possible outcome. For that I am grateful. It could have been different. It certainly would have been a generations earlier.
Factories, the idea of them, is represented in music in varied ways. The direct inspiration on early Heavy Metal from industrial Birmingham, commercial Pop churned out factory style, Manchester’s Factory Records label. E
ven Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about a factory - perhaps inspired by his father’s experiences (I love Lucinda Williams’s version).
The derelict buildings in which some of these factories once existed hold a fascination for me: the working lives lived in them, day after day, year after year, generation after generation. Perhaps the locals who lived in the shadow of their imposing Master may never have strayed beyond a few square miles for their entire lives. It would undoubtedly come as a great surprise to the great grandparents of young urban dwellers - who now aspire to live in the very same buildings they spent their lives trying to escape.
These pieces evoke the idea of a few of the characters, sounds, emotions, and repetition of these places: a mouse that lives on the floors, walking past a factory clock… As an album, the recordings represent both the destruction of the buildings and the loss of the people’s purpose and dignity, as well as the silencing of the growing murmur of workers left without employment.
I watched a powerful documentary about the Raleigh Bicycle Company factory in Nottingham a few years back. The strength of the worker’s feelings about the place, the community, the purpose, the chance it gave them; showed factories in another light. Mostly positive for some, but not all, I imagine. Jonny Flockton 2025
LIVE PERFORMANCES OF FACTOIRIES- NEXT SHOW 16/10/25 7ARTS LEEDS
Thanks to Matt Bourne for additional liner notes.
Known for his virtuosic sensitivity and musicality, Jonny Flockton’s guitar work is well loved by fortunate collaborators and listeners, alike. This collection of pieces sees Jonny working alone for the very first time on record, and such is the focus and poise of the music, one feels easily in the presence of an accomplished solo artist. The boundaries of the music here are simultaneously contiguous yet elusive: there’s always something new to be ‘seen’ with each listen. In truth, this work is a powerful, auspicious, and the long-overdue solo debut from Jonny we’ve all been waiting for.
Matthew Bourne, The Old Cowshed, 2025
LIVE SESSION ON BBC6 MUSIC! with Mik Artistik Feb 2025
In the studio summer 2025, new COLOUR OF LIGHT ALBUM on it’s way plus late summer gigs.
I’ll be on tour with Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip in Autumn 2024. Click image above for band website to buy tour tickets, buy the new album for 2024 “POP” on vinyl or CD, merchandise, contact, band You Tube channel and socials.
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I am also performing with acoustic roots band Colour Of Light around the North of England in 2024. Visit http://www.colouroflight.com/ for releases, videos dates etc.
I have recently been performing with York based singer-songwriter Boss Cain, playing original material in the electric country, Americana, singer songwriter genres. Boss has appeared on Bob Harris Radio 2 show and performerd widely. Visit https://www.facebook.com/bosscaine/.
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Live gigs through autumn 2025 with Big Bamboo
new for 2024, vinyl or cd form band website, click image to buy.
For creative collaborations, I am involved in various other projects including Hard Times Orchestra, performing jazz and songbook material, including Tom Waits songs, old time blues etc. Visit https://twitter.com/HardTimesOrch for footage. I have also recorded, performed and collaborated on many recordings with varrying artists. Summer 2020 also saw a duo collaboration with Aby Vullmay. live with Hardtimes Orchestra and Redeffusion Allstars. I am also very much looking forward to playing with Matt Bourne and Keeley Forsyth and Ecka Mordecai in Glasgow at the end of January 2020, playing music from their new album https://soundcloud.com/keeley-forsyth/tracks as featured in the Guardian Newspaper https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/09/keeley-forsyth-how-the-happy-valley-actor-became-the-new-scott-walker.And Finally I have been playing some improv electronica at Leeds Yoga space.
Please contact me on the following for collaborations, sessions, etc https://www.jonnyflockton.com/contact-1.
I have performed in various live and recording settings as a session guitarist including recording the music for episodes of the Netflix series All Creatures Great and Small, Red Ladder theatre productions and part of the live band for London / York based contemporary production of Richard the 3rd. See below for various archive projects etc.
Experimental electronica trio performing at Leeds Yoga Festival
Hardtimes Orchestra
Colour of Light