TRAD ARRPOCALYPSE! THE INTENSE NEW FOLK OF LANKUM.
ROUGH TRADE’S most startling release of the autumn is full of long, dramatic songs influenced by Krautrock, Sunn O))) and My Bloody Valentine – but with a twist. The band behind it also play Irish bagpipes, tin whistles and concertinas, instruments that garland the traditional songs that inspire them. A four-piece Dublin band named after a child-murdering villain in a ballad, Lankum aren’t your typical folk prospect.
“We wanted to make these massive apocalyptic soundscapes with traditional instruments making drones and other sounds,” says singer/multi-instrumentalist Ian Lynch, talking about their forthcoming third album, The Livelong Day; his tattoos and piercings reveal teenage punk roots.
“And give traditional folk listeners a jolt,” adds singer/multi-instrumentalist Radie Peat with a smile. Her voice can sound heartbreakingly tender or like an earthquake opening the ground.
First formed by Ian and his singer/ multi-instrumentalist brother Daragh in 2008, Lankum were originally called Lynched, a gothic play on their surname that they ditched in 2016 (“We will not continue to work under our current name while the systematic persecution and murder of black people in the USA continues,” they wrote then). Peat and fiddle-playing schoolfriend Cormac MacDiarmada joined in 2012, the quartet’s reputation growing in Dublin’s folk, squat and experimental scenes. Four years later, Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis saw them at a tiny folk festival, and says today, “They were the best new band we had heard, regardless of genre.”
He was particularly impressed by the title track of their first album, Cold
Old Fire, about modern-day poverty. Their 2017 Rough Trade debut
Between The Earth And Sky combined similar impassioned originals with intense interpretations of traditional songs. In mood, The Livelong Day resembles a darker, ancient cousin of Portishead’s Third. “I love that!” Lynch says. “We’ve nailed a sound we’ve been aiming for for a long time and I’m proud.” The album includes an unsettling take on The Wild Rover (known best for modern versions by The Pogues and The Dubliners), Ode To Lullaby (a take on American fiddle tunes that sounds positively industrial), and a version of Katie Cruel up there with Karen Dalton’s. “It’s the first album of ours I’ve been able to listen to afterwards,” says Radie. “I was so proud to give it to my mam!”
Lankum are also brilliant live, with hilarious between-song camaraderie, plus their Instagram feed is a hoot (check out their recent US tour diary). Their audiences are diversifying too. “They’re becoming a big mixture of people who don’t look like they should be in the same room,” Radie says. “Punks, crusties and old couples together. I love it.”
“I want more people to give us a chance too,” Ian adds. “To listen to it as music rather than folk. To let it out and do its thing.”
“We wanted to give traditional folk listeners a jolt” RADIE PEAT