Lankum on the loss of Sinéad O’Connor and the “heartening” nod from the Mercury Prize
nme.comLankum have spoken to NME about the loss of Sinéad O’Connor – as well as trying to capture the “broader spectrum of the human experience” on their Mercury-shortlisted album.
Watch our interview above.The Dublin folk band – with Cormac MacDiarmada with Daragh and Ian Lynch from the quartet in attendance – were speaking at the launch of the Mercury Prize 2023, where their highly-acclaimed fourth album ‘False Lankum’ latest was shortlisted alongside albums by the likes of Arctic Monkeys, J Hus, RAYE, Jockstrap, Young Fathers, Shygirl, Fred Again..
and more.“Fancy seeing us here? We didn’t think we’d be here ourselves,” Ian told NME. “It’s mad, bizarre, weird, scary – but above all, it’s great.”Asked why they felt this record had captured people as it had and landed them a Mercury nod, Ian said: “It’s definitely the album that we feel is the closest we’ve got to realising our musical vision.
I’m kind of surprised that it’s one of our more accessible albums that got this far. We’re just doing exactly what we want. There are definitely elements of the album that aren’t that accessible, so it’s heartening to see that it could make it an awards ceremony like this.”Daragh agreed: “Going into making it from the very beginning, we were very aware that we wanted to make it incredibly dark – but to also have the contrast of really light and sweet stuff.
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