On 5th March 2025, Dublin-based trad music duo VARO will share the second single from their highly anticipated upcoming album. ‘Green Grows the Laurel’ features renowned Irish folk musician John Francis Flynn (“John Francis Flynn is leading Ireland’s folk music renaissance” - FT.com).
Describing the process of working on this traditional song together, Lucie Azconaga and Consuelo Nerea Breschi, A.K.A. VARO, say:
“John is one of the first people we physically met to work with for this project at the time. It’s been extremely enjoyable.
We'd known each other and had played together for years, but that was the very first time we were taking a song from scratch in order to build it together. His voice is so beautiful and deep. It contrasted really well with ours while being very complementary at the same time. It all happened very easily.
We all agreed to bring some dark level of pain and loneliness to it. The double-whistle he’s using creates this tense and kind of crying line that opens and concludes the song. We decided to keep the rest quite bare to represent the loneliness of the main character until we reach the ending with a heavy crescendo accompanying the pain and struggles of this heartbroken narrator. We’ve invited John to perform it with us on several occasions since then and it’s always been an absolute pleasure.”
John Francis Flynn says: “I first heard Green Grows The Laurel sung by Delores Keane and was immediately struck by its beautiful melody. Keane’s version with John Faulkner is iconic but it was exciting to try something a little different with it with my friends Consuelo and Lucie. It was really nice to work with the excellent John Murphy who recorded and mixed the track. I’m very happy with the result.”
This haunting version of the traditional song features the unmistakable production skills of John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum, ØXN, Black Midi, Goat Girl, Anna B. Savage), and is taken from The World That I Knew, a collaborative album by VARO, which will be released independently on May 9th.
The album, which has been five years in the making, has been highly anticipated due to VARO’s reputation in Dublin’s live trad and folk music scene, and also to the exceptional list of musicians featuring, which reads like a who’s who of important figures in Ireland’s contemporary folk and trad sene: Ian Lynch (Lankum), John Francis Flynn, Anna Mieke, Alannah Thornburgh, Junior Brother, Slow Moving Clouds, Niamh Bury, Inni-K, Ruth Clinton and Cormac MacDiarmada (Poor Creature), Lemoncello and Branwen. The album is available to pre-order here.
An official music video accompanies the single. The video was directed and edited by VARO and filmed by Nathanael Macdonald with Ronan Nissenbaum as Camera Assistant. WATCH HERE.
Since the release of the first single from The World That I Knew in January (‘Red Robin feat. Alannah Thornburgh’ - Listen Here, Watch Video Here), VARO have been capturing the attention of music fans worldwide, with tastemakers like Bob Boilen (founder of NPR Music's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts) playing the single on his WOWD Takoma Radio show and adding it to his NPR Music Spotify Playlist; Music and culture writer Will Hermes (The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Uncut, etc.) making it his Song of the Day, former fRoots editor Ian Anderson featuring the single on his renowned Podwireless show and UK folk music site KLOF featuring news of the impending album release. Media attention in Ireland has been extensive, with airplay nationwide and press attention from The Thin Air, Nialler9, Golden Plec, Hot Press and more.