From an Irish Times interview March 13th, 2023
With their triumphant return to live performance in Vicar Street last December, with further May dates sold out at the same venue, and a recent hairpin bend to London where they scored the show for Simone Rocha’s latest fashion collection, Lankum are back. One thing they’re clear about is that theirs is a sound that defies neat categorisation, challenging algorithms with each successive track.
“We definitely wouldn’t consider our albums to be traditional music,” Ian offers as we all part company. “It’s obviously one strong element but it’s not what you’d call folk or traditional music. Those things are just ingredients or elements. Sometimes people refer to us as folk or folk punk but we’re not. We’re not claiming that this is traditional or folk. It’s just its own thing. It’s music.”