Radie Peat is perplexed by the fact that my call to her seemingly has been routed through the Faroe Islands, the far, far northern archipelago governed by Denmark, lying between Norway and Iceland. It is after all, rather far from here and even a reasonable distance from her base in Dublin. The concertina/harmonium/keyboard player and singer who makes up one quarter of Irish folk band Lankum – or as she’ll explain later, one fifth if you count, as they do, their new album’s p

LANKUM The Livelong Day (Rough Trade/Remote Control) The cleverest trick this devilishly good Irish band pulled off was making a folk record steeped in traditions and convincing you it’s a very modern record. It’s not such a trick really: this is a very modern record. And a powerfully vulnerable and open one. Built around the kind of drone which sits at the root of Arabic, African, American and European folk, but is also in the undercurrent of western art and even psychedelic