Tag Archives: all the world’s a jail

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Lynched – playing the BBC Folk Awards tonight at the Royal Albert Hall

1. Dublin traditional/folk four-piece Lynched are the antithesis of safe, diddly-aye stagnation in the genre, commenting fearlessly on austerity, social issues, trad tropes and modern Irish identity.

2. Having existed in various guises for over a decade, Lynched as we know them today came together when the Lynch brothers met bandmates Cormac and Radie at various trad sessions around Dublin around 2012, and began arranging songs the duo had been working on for the prior few years, as well as some lesser-known traditional pieces.

3. Streaming above is Cold Old Fire, the title track from their second album, recorded by Danny Diamond of Slow Moving Clouds in Merrion Street’s Irish Traditional Music Archive in 2014.

4. This was the tune that helped get them kicked off RTÉ Radio on Culture Night a few years back, when showrunners attempted to steer their set away from the recession ballad (how’s about that recovery!) before removing them from proceedings. Nevermind, though: they wound up on Jools Holland after.

5.
Tonight, they’ll be a world away from upsetting the official narrative, representing themselves and performing at the BBC Folk Awards, live at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Streaming tonight on BBC iPlayer, because why should public-service broadcasters provide “niche-interest” television or anything, it’s only what they’re funded to do, like.

6. Fight!

Verdict: Alongside The Gloaming, as well as the likes of Daithí, Moxie, Slow Moving Clouds and others, Lynched are not trad’s future: they’re the genre’s present. Passionate and progressive while retaining a world-weary authenticity.

Lynched