Lankum’s fourth release, False Lankum, has been nominated for ‘Album of the Year’ in this year’s Mercury Music Prize, which finds them up against the likes of Arctic Monkeys and London’s jazz quintet Ezra Collective.
Speaking to Tom Ravenscroft on BBC 6 Music, they talked about the 220-year-old Martello Tower they occupied for stints during the album’s making. It’s based just off the eastern coast of Ireland, and, as those of you familiar with the album will know, False Lankum has maritime connections throughout (more on below).
They also shared some history – that similar martello towers were built all around Dublin between 1803 and 1804 by the British as defensive measures against what was perceived to be a Napoleonic threat at the time. They were built to last with walls that are ten feet thick…Lankum holed themselves up there for three or four stints – a couple of weeks at a time. The resonance of that space and being isolated added to the experience.
They said about the prize: “It’s pretty crazy, considering where we started off twenty years ago as a joke band playing at parties and squats…”. When asked why they thought this album had been spotted or picked up, they said: “I think it might be the first time we’ve fully nailed the sound that we’ve been going for over the last few albums…it took a couple of decades”.
Tom Ravenscroft finished the interview by playing Good Dig My Grave. The song was discovered by Lankum’s Radie Peat, who learned the particular version on the album from the singing of Jean Ritchie, who recorded it in 1963 on the album Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson at Folk City. It is a member of a family of songs which seem to be largely made up of what are known as ‘floating verses’, originally composed as stanzas of various ballads, some of which date back to the 17th century.
“Our interpretation of the traditional song Go Dig My Grave is one that centres around the emotion of grief – all-consuming, unbearable and absolute,” explain Lankum, “A visceral physical reaction to something that the body and mind are almost incapable of processing. The second part of the song is inspired by the Irish tradition of keening (from the Irish caoineadh) – a traditional form of lament for the deceased. Regarded by some as opening up ‘perilous channels of communication with the dead’, the practice came under severe censure from the catholic church in Ireland from the 17th century on.”
In our review of the album, Thomas Blake noted the album’s maritime connection when writing about the song Clear Away In The Morning:
The song begins with an atonal chirrup which blurs the boundaries between organic and synthetic before a more traditional thrum of guitar strings anchors the song in calmer waters, and a beautiful harmony keeps everything afloat. These maritime metaphors are not accidental – the whole album resonates with the hum and movement of the sea: the deep drones and high squalls, the dirty winds and clear skies. False Lankum’s involvement with the sea may be accidental – the band didn’t realise until after recording that every song contained a maritime reference of some sort – but it feels absolutely right, almost fated. It’s as if the band use the sea in the same way that Brian Eno might use a car park or an office block, or a shopping centre.
Cyril Tawney’s On a Monday Morning is among the folk songs and ballads covered on the album. Those of you that follow Folk Radio may recall Darragh Lynch’s appreciation of Cyril Tawney, who was best known for his maritime songs and spent thirteen years in the Navy from the age of sixteen. During this time, he developed an interest in folk music. Ahead of the release of ‘False Lankum’ Darragh shared a solo acoustic offering of the song on what would have been Tawney’s 90th birthday.
‘On A Monday Morning ‘appeared on Tawney’s 1972 album “In Port”, which included Sally Free And Easy, The Grey Funnel Line, and not forgetting…Chicken on a Raft, the latter named after an unpopular dish served in the Royal Navy, consisting of fried egg on fried bread.
It’s quite something to receive a nomination on top of their previous album (The Livelong Day), also receiving notable recognition – it picked up the RTE Choice Music Prize (the Irish equivalent of the Album of the Year Grammy) and the #8 spot on NPR Music’s Best Albums of the Year list.
Onwards and upwards!