Lankum - False Lankum (Black Vinyl)

This record sees the band cement their breakout from the folk genre, creating bold, contemporary music that may be fashioned from traditional elements but is firmly new, sitting comfortably alongside Rough Trade labelmates like black midi and Gilla Band.
‘False Lankum’ also features two original tracks, ‘Netta Perseus’ and ‘The Turn’, both penned by the group’s Daragh Lynch.
‘Go Dig My Grave’ 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 different ballads, some of which date back as far as 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.”