Foy Vance shares Know By Now video from album If
With more than a hundred songs already behind him, the Northern Irish songwriter frames his ninth album as a clean claim on the present, and the new film keeps that claim firmly in the here and now.
Foy Vance has shared the video for Know By Now, a single taken from his ninth studio album If. The track and the film arrive with the emphasis kept on the record rather than on a wider roll-out of dates or further releases.
Vance has described If as a moment of reflection, born from a desire to own his narrative. He has noted that he had already released more than 100 songs before this project took shape. That volume of work sits behind the new album as context, not as a catalogue to lean on. If is positioned as rooted in the here and now, a present-tense statement rather than a look back through earlier material. Realising he’d released more than 100 songs – and written many more – Foy decided to turn the clock back, reinterpreting select material from his current vantage point. Not a cover version per se, the aim was to unite with producer Anderson East and act as though they were recording the songs for the first ever time. Split into three parts – an EP trilogy, effectively – it opens with ‘If: We’ on 30 October.
Owning the narrative
For a Northern Irish singer-songwriter long established across the Irish and British circuit, the framing carries weight. A body of work that large can begin to speak for the artist before the artist speaks again. Vance’s account of If pushes against that drift. The ninth studio album becomes the point at which he sets the terms himself, song by song, without letting the previous hundred dictate the shape of what follows.
Know By Now sits inside that frame. Co-written with Grammy-winning songwriter Lori McKenna, it’s a song about wisdom and regret sung from a much older perspective; the performance has a stark beauty to it, a warming piece of alt folk tinged with a wistful sadness. With Foy hitting the road this month for a UK tour – including two nights at O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London – he’s ready to share the song in full, alongside the video. Foy comments: “From time to time everyone feels the need to be understood without having to explain themselves.”
The campaign, for now, centres on the song, the film and the album that holds them. Listeners who follow Vance through the singer-songwriter scene on both sides of the Irish Sea will recognise the pattern of a working artist who keeps records coming while still choosing when to pause and restate the case for the work.
What comes next
What remains open is everything beyond this single step. Whether If will bring a further run of videos, a full tour, or simply hold as a contained statement is not yet known. Vance has not attached those plans beyond the current release. The album is in the world as a claim on the here and now, and the video is the latest way into it.
That is where the story stands: a new single, a new film, a ninth studio album already framed by its maker as an act of ownership rather than of accumulation, and a career that continues. For an artist still active at the centre of the Irish and British singer-songwriter scene, the work is out. The rest, for the moment, stays unannounced.
Tour dates
OCTOBER 2026
17 – Edinburgh, The Queen's Hall
18 – Stirling, Stirling Albert Halls
20 – Birmingham, Town Hall
23 – London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
24 – London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
25 – Manchester, Albert Hall
27 – Wexford, Wexford Spiegeltent Festival
29 – Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre
Vance has described If as a moment of reflection, born from a desire to own his narrative. He has noted that he had already released more than 100 songs before this project took shape. That volume of work sits behind the new album as context, not as a catalogue to lean on. If is positioned as rooted in the here and now, a present-tense statement rather than a look back through earlier material. Realising he’d released more than 100 songs – and written many more – Foy decided to turn the clock back, reinterpreting select material from his current vantage point. Not a cover version per se, the aim was to unite with producer Anderson East and act as though they were recording the songs for the first ever time. Split into three parts – an EP trilogy, effectively – it opens with ‘If: We’ on 30 October.
Owning the narrative
For a Northern Irish singer-songwriter long established across the Irish and British circuit, the framing carries weight. A body of work that large can begin to speak for the artist before the artist speaks again. Vance’s account of If pushes against that drift. The ninth studio album becomes the point at which he sets the terms himself, song by song, without letting the previous hundred dictate the shape of what follows.
Know By Now sits inside that frame. Co-written with Grammy-winning songwriter Lori McKenna, it’s a song about wisdom and regret sung from a much older perspective; the performance has a stark beauty to it, a warming piece of alt folk tinged with a wistful sadness. With Foy hitting the road this month for a UK tour – including two nights at O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London – he’s ready to share the song in full, alongside the video. Foy comments: “From time to time everyone feels the need to be understood without having to explain themselves.”
The campaign, for now, centres on the song, the film and the album that holds them. Listeners who follow Vance through the singer-songwriter scene on both sides of the Irish Sea will recognise the pattern of a working artist who keeps records coming while still choosing when to pause and restate the case for the work.
What comes next
What remains open is everything beyond this single step. Whether If will bring a further run of videos, a full tour, or simply hold as a contained statement is not yet known. Vance has not attached those plans beyond the current release. The album is in the world as a claim on the here and now, and the video is the latest way into it.
That is where the story stands: a new single, a new film, a ninth studio album already framed by its maker as an act of ownership rather than of accumulation, and a career that continues. For an artist still active at the centre of the Irish and British singer-songwriter scene, the work is out. The rest, for the moment, stays unannounced.
Tour dates
OCTOBER 2026
17 – Edinburgh, The Queen's Hall
18 – Stirling, Stirling Albert Halls
20 – Birmingham, Town Hall
23 – London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
24 – London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
25 – Manchester, Albert Hall
27 – Wexford, Wexford Spiegeltent Festival
29 – Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre
