Foy Vance heads to Manchester with his seventh album The Wake which marks the completion of a decades-long journey defined by tireless soul-searching and life-altering revelation
After decades of writing toward one destination, Foy Vance found himself somewhere entirely new. Following the completion of 2026’s The Wake—the seventh and final installment in a cycle of albums he began in the aftermath of his father’s sudden death in 1999—the Northern Ireland-born singer/songwriter felt called to revisit a vast archive of material he’d written over the course of 27 years but never shared with the world.
As he sorted through over a hundred songs he’d kept closely guarded for so long, Vance examined how the passage of time had altered or deepened their meaning, revealing new truths in their collective exploration of devotion, grief, longing, and forgiveness. Produced by Anderson East (Lukas Nelson, The Lone Bellow), his eighth album IF gathers a selection of those newly reimagined songs into an intimate but sweeping meditation on transformation and possibility.
Featuring co-writes with luminaries like Lori McKenna, Natalie Hemby, Gabe Simon and Ross Copperman, IF marks a bold new chapter in a body of work including landmark albums like Vance’s 2013 international breakthrough Joy of Nothing (featuring guest spots from Bonnie Raitt and Ed Sheeran) and 2016’s The Wild Swan (executive-produced by Elton John). As it unfolds across three distinct acts—IF: WE, IF: YOU, and IF: I—the album gradually narrows its focus from our place in the wider world to the complexities of love to the inner workings of the self. A rare dialogue across time and experience, the result is a deeply human portrait of the infinite ways in which love changes us, the lasting imprints of what we endure, and the seemingly small choices that end up shaping a life.
