LIVE

LANKUM

Abbey Theatre, Dublin, August 15

Intense music for troubled times: a stunning immersive livestream from the drone-folk band

OUR night out in Dublin town begins with a taxi ride to the historic Abbey Theatre, where there are buskers on the pavement outside and we are personally welcomed by an usher who directs us to our seat in the stalls. No, we’re not flouting public safety rules. Our visit is virtual and entirely Covid-compliant for an event billed as not just another internet lockdown concert but a “fully immersive experience”. We’re even requested to switch off our mobile phones before the curtain rises and we begin our journey with Lankum into a “warped, dream world of musical performance, theatre, drones and existential uncertainty”.

Since signing to Rough Trade for 2017’s impressive drone-folk effort , Lankum have emerged as the dazzling new jewel in the crown of Irish roots music. Brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch had been working together under the Lynched moniker since the early 2000s, adding fiddler Cormac MacDiarmadaand sensibly changing their name to Lankum – after the folk song “False Lankum”, an Irish variation of an 18th century murder ballad – in 2016.