Northern Irish singer-songwriter Foy Vance is building a new album, *IF*, in stages, with a five-song EP due October 30 and the full 16-song record scheduled for April 30, 2027. The project, produced by Anderson East, grew out of a decision to keep writing after what Vance had long treated as the final chapter of his catalog.
From Shelved Songs to a New Series
Vance says the idea for *IF* came while he was finishing *The Wake*, the seventh album in a series he had planned as complete. A song called "I'm Not Celebrating" would not come together until the producer Ethan Johns suggested removing the hope from it. Vance found that the single word "if" was what gave the song its optimism, and that word became the starting point for the next record.
Rather than writing from scratch, Vance sent East a folder of older songs that had once been meant for *Hope*, *Joy of Nothing* and *The Wild Swan* but were never released. East then selected material from more than 100 songs, some co-written with Nashville writers including Lori McKenna, Natalie Hemby, Gabe Simon and Ross Copperman.
A Catalog Built on Collaboration
Vance's profile has grown as much through his writing for other artists as through his own records. He co-wrote several songs on Ed Sheeran's multi-platinum second and third albums, including "Galway Girl," "Tenerife Sea" and "Afire Love," and has also written with Alicia Keys, Sam Smith, Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert.
He describes his own writing as solitary and intuitive, and says he turns down far more co-writing requests than he accepts. That tension, between the private process behind his songs and the collaborative work he takes on selectively, shapes how he presents *IF* as a record about the move from "we" to "you" to "I."
Touring While the Album Takes Shape
Vance is currently on tour in the U.K. after completing shows in Europe and Scandinavia, and he will launch the first leg of a U.S. tour in November, focused on the Western United States. He is performing alongside Bonnie Bishop and Peter J. McCauley, and says he has begun sticking to a setlist for the first time in years, a shift he compares to working in a theater production.