Lankum
Daragh Lynch and Radie Peat
Lankum is normally a four-piece traditional acoustic folk group from Dublin established in the early 2000s They combine distinctive four-part vocal harmonies with arrangements of uilleann pipes, concertina, Russian accordion, fiddle and guitar. Their repertoire spans humorous Dublin music-hall ditties and street-songs, classic ballads from the Traveller tradition, traditional Irish and American dance tunes, and their own original material. The Guardian’s ★★★★★ reviewer said: There is folk that wants to whisper in your ear, and then there is the music of Lankum: urgent, desperate and detonating, full of lyrics and sounds smacking together like waves shattering stones in a storm…. The most convincing folk band to come out of Ireland in years… a younger, darker Pogues with more astonishing power’
Hares on the Mountain
A piece by Davey Graham played by Lankum for Bert Jansch
Daragh writes: “The tune Radie and I played, is a version of ‘Hares on the Mountain’ from the Davey Graham, Shirley Collins album ‘Folk Roots, New Routes’, but the style of playing is what both Bert and Davey are renowned for, probably most famously with the folk standard ‘Anji’. Apparently, Bert was present at the actual recording sessions and it directly affected both his style and repertoire. Myself and Radie have recently started playing this live at Lankum gigs and it’s always very enjoyable to play – and on this guitar was an absolute pleasure.”
Daragh adds: “I’ve been playing traditional Irish music on guitar for years, and very early on made the change from standard tuning to DADGAD. Any research always threw up the names of Bert Jansch and Davey Graham, both pioneers of this tuning during the British folk revival of the sixties. In later years I became interested in the huge amounts of cross-pollination between the various British and Irish scenes at the time, from The Bothy Band, to The Incredible String Band, to Martin Carthy. Bert Jansch’s name showed up as a major influence in almost every story about folk music at the time, and I spent a considerable amount of time getting into the slightly jazz influenced finger style playing of both Bert and Davey, between whom there was a huge amount of cross-pollination too.”
‘Anarchic, yet connected, rootsy and gutsy… I love their music, it is just so damn good!’
Mike Harding
Lankum has gained somewhat of a reputation since the release of their album ‘Cold Old Fire’ and an appearance on Later… with Jools Holland, as well as three nominations at the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Their latest album ‘Between the Earth and Sky’ is available now on Rough Trade Records.