Mourning and deliverance in Irish folk 🌿
“Go dig my grave/Both wide and deep/Place a marble stone/At my head and feet” opens last year’s False Lankum with Radie Peat’s unsettling voice. The traditional folk song takes on a meditative to apocalyptic dimension in the Dublin band’s rendition, focusing on the experience of paralysing sadness. But the rest of Lankum’s fourth studio record also has a spirit of liberation and reconciliation – traditional instruments and timeless stories meet droning, serene harmonies. Heartnoize brings the Irish folk foursome to the ARCHA+ space on September 20, 2024.
False Lankum (Rough Trade) is a 70-minute recording conceived as 12 interconnected tracks drawing on indigenous musical practices as well as classical songwriting. Acoustic instruments such as fiddle, accordion, guitar and Irish elbow pipes combine with the vocals to create elaborate harmonies and walls of sound. In doing so, the four-piece band capitalizes on its many years on the scene, during which it has experimented with the possibilities of folk, collecting traditional songs from the Irish countryside and playing with their form.
Emotions shared across generations are given contemporary form in Lankum’s performance, seamlessly transitioning between moments of deep sorrow and inner peace across the record’s surface, together creating music that is traditional and innovative at the same time. False Lankum’s album has been nominated for a Mercury Prize and has appeared on numerous best of 2023 lists, even topping The Guardian and Quietus magazine’s best of 2023 lists.
The concert is organised by Heartnoize Promotion in collaboration with ARCHA+.
The event will take place with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Culture Ireland, and the Prague City Hall.
