Irish quartet Lankum release their new single, ‘Newcastle’, taken from their forthcoming album False Lankum, which is released on March 24, 2023, via Rough Trade Records. Thomas Blake reviewed the album for Folk Radio this week:
It’s a truism to say that folk music is mutable and endlessly malleable, but for it to be so, someone has to have the courage to push it into genuinely new and exciting directions. False Lankum is the Dublin group’s fourth album as a quartet and their most uncompromising to date. It is not so much a retreat down the rabbit hole as a bold statement of intent and an example of how new ideas can still enliven old forms.
Thomas Blake, Folk Radio
And, on the song Newcastle, he notes that Radie Peat’s singing is deceptive in its apparent simplicity and full of longing. Despite the sadness of the words, there is a defiant sense of positivity in her rendering.
Lankum learned the song from Seán Fitzgerald, vocalist and fiddle player of the Dublin-based band The Deadlians who have featured on a number of our shows on Folk Radio including a St Patrick’s special here and most recently in our Folk Show Episode 122.
Lankum explain the background to ‘Newcastle’ below:
“We learned this song from Seán Fitzgerald of The Deadlians, whose mother Pauline sang it to him as a child. The tune was first published in ‘The English Dancing Master’ (1651) where it is simply entitled ‘Newcastle’, while the words may be related to a broadside ballad printed in 1620 and entitled ‘The contented Couckould, Or a pleasant new Songe of a New-Castle man whose wife being gon from him, shewing how he came to London to her, & when he found her carried her backe againe to New-Castle Towne.”
Stream Newcastle here: https://lankum.ffm.to/newcastle
See their upcoming tour dates below.
Lankum Tour Dates
APRIL
25th Apr – Silent Green, Berlin, Germany – sold out
28th Apr – Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, Netherlands– sold out
30th Apr – Le Botanique, Brussels, Belgium
MAY
2nd May – Petit Bain, Paris, France
4th May – London, Barbican, London, UK – sold out
10th May – St Lukes, Glasgow, UK – sold out
11th May – Band on the Wall, Manchester, UK – sold out
Fri 12th May – SWX, Bristol, UK – sold out
19th May – Mandela Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland – sold out
20th May – Cork Opera House, Cork, Ireland – sold out
24th May – Cork Opera House, Cork, Ireland
29th May – Vicar St, Dublin, Ireland
30th May – Vicar St, Dublin, Ireland – sold out
31st May – Vicar St, Dublin, Ireland – sold out
JUNE
8th Jun – Beaches Brew, Ravenna, IT
10th June – Best Kept Secret, Hilvarenbeek, NL
28th Jun – Pop Messe, Brno, Czech Republic
AUGUST
4-6th Aug – All Together Now Festival, Co Waterford, Ireland
17-21st Aug – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, UK
SEPTEMBER
1-3rd Sep – Supersonic Festival, Birmingham, UK
NOVEMBER
17th Nov – Manufaktur, Schorndorf, Germany
19th Nov – Transcentury Update Festival, Leipzig, Germany
22nd Nov – Lido, Berlin, Germany
23rd Nov – Stadtgarten, Köln, Germany
26th Nov – Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
DECEMBER
13th Dec – The Roundhouse, London, UK
Website: https://lankumdublin.com/