Johnny Flynn & Lillie Flynn

The brother-and-sister duo share heartfelt new album Beam Cottage, inspired by the folk, acoustic and traditional music they grew up with. Johnny and Lillie Flynn, both actors and musicians, come together to celebrate the music that they love, rooted in a shared history. Beam Cottage is named after their childhood home, ‘an idyll of happiness and togetherness before life began to feel more complicated’, they say. To take this place and time and capture it in song was only natural for the Flynns, both of whom have found success playing music and acting. The album includes original music from the pair and a lullaby written by their father, alongside reworkings of music from Johnny’s extensive catalogue and covers of songs they grew up singing, whether in the car or round a fire. These songs will often be familiar to those who know Johnny’s folk-infused albums, with Beam Cottage often evoking the close, emotional feeling of a music session in a local pub, with guitars clattering and chiming and fiddles rising and falling. The covers include those of songs made famous by Johnny Mercer, Hank Williams and Billy Bragg. Like many of the tracks on the album, they showcase the natural interplay between Johnny’s rasping baritone and Lillie’s clear soprano. Beam Cottage is Johnny’s seventh album and the follow-up to The Moon Also Rises, his 2023 album in collaboration with the celebrated author Robert Macfarlane. While Lillie was always involved in Johnny’s recording and touring, the