{"id":74569,"date":"2026-10-08T16:38:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/08\/interview-with-the-irish-folk-band\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T16:38:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:38:34","slug":"interview-with-the-irish-folk-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/08\/interview-with-the-irish-folk-band\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview With the Irish Folk Band"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tThe artwork for Madra Salach<\/a>\u2019s debut album, Gorta<\/em>, is equal parts gorgeous and troubling. Created by Irish artist Oscar Torrans, it depicts a face that is gleaming but also in clear distress. Beams of light \u2014 or perhaps water \u2014 pour into its open and featureless mouth as the figure appears to disintegrate.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe art\u2019s inspiration is an amalgam of two dark and somewhat disturbing mythological creatures. One of these is the Irish medieval sculptures known as Sheela na gigs. Often found adorning the entrances to churches and castles in Ireland and across Europe, the carvings of women with exaggerated and exposed vulvas were supposedly meant to ward off evil spirits.<\/p>\n

\n\tTorrans also looked to the mythology of the Blemmyes, sometimes known as akephaloi or \u201cheadless ones,\u201d figures who had no traditional head. Instead, their faces protrude from their torsos, with the generally assumed metaphor being that, while we think our heads know best, the real truth comes from the stomach.<\/p>\n

\n\tPaul Banks, singer of the fast-rising Dublin folk band, wanted Torrans\u2019 artwork to portray a figure with \u201chungry eyes\u201d and a \u201cwild, desperate expression.\u201d Gorta<\/em>, the album\u2019s title, translates from Irish as \u201chunger\u201d or \u201cfamine,\u201d with the folkloric Irish character the Fear Gorta, literally meaning the Man of Hunger. \u201cHunger is a feeling that comes from inside,\u201d the album\u2019s first line goes, with Banks later describing it as \u201ca hammer,\u201d \u201ca sin,\u201d \u201chorrendous,\u201d something \u201cthat kills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross their stunning debut full-length album, Madra Salach take the idea of a gut feeling to new extremes, using the parable to distil the murky but undeniable inherited trauma that persists today on \u2014 as Banks names it on the album\u2019s final song \u2014 his \u201chaunted isle of green.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFOR A DECADE NOW, much of the best music made on the British Isles has been coming from Ireland. Both the indie singalongs of Fontaines D.C.<\/a> and the country-tinged pop of CMAT<\/a> now fill arenas, while traditional folk is back in the zeitgeist thanks in large part to Dublin\u2019s Lankum and Dundalk\u2019s the Mary Wallopers.<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tBanks credits the latter two acts for paving the way for Madra Salach\u2019s lightning-fast ascent, and especially their success abroad. While two decades ago their folklore-inspired, bilingual songs might have bemused crowds in Poland or Germany (both places where they have gone down a storm at festivals this summer), Banks says his band are now received by crowds who \u201cwe\u2019re not trying to convert\u201d thanks to their predecessors.<\/p>\n

\n\tRegardless of context or language barriers, Madra Salach are a mighty presence on stage, led by Banks\u2019 booming voice. Reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel<\/a>\u2019s Jeff Mangum in its sheer strength and volume (the band have <\/a>routinely covered<\/a> \u201cIn the Aeroplane Over the Sea\u201d at gigs), the voice is backed up by the menacing harmonium playing of Maxime Arnold and a band who you can tell were raised on punk music rather than traditional folk.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe way that we play is a bit more uninhibited, because you\u2019re not thinking about the rules of traditional Irish music,\u201d says Jack Martin, who can be found onstage with a guitar, synth, tin whistle, or whatever else a song requires. \u201cWe\u2019re playing these traditional instruments in the way that we know how to play them. It\u2019s not necessarily the \u2018correct\u2019 way, [but] that\u2019s created a unique sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tThe cover image for Gorta<\/em>, made by artist Oscar Torrans.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWhile last year\u2019s debut EP, It\u2019s a Hell of an Age<\/em>, showcased their songwriting ability and Banks\u2019 remarkable voice, it\u2019s new single \u201cRibbon Factory\u201d \u2014 the first taste of Gorta<\/em> \u2014 that finally translates the band\u2019s live energy and snarl on record. It\u2019s one of plenty of punk-influenced moments on Gorta<\/em>, an album that at different points also utilizes gloomy, ambient drones, swinging accordion, and lo-fi, homespun acoustic guitar.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tBoth Lankum and the Mary Wallopers gather much of their material from traditional songs stretching back decades or even centuries, some of which have been passed down so many times that the identity of their original authors is anybody\u2019s guess. Only one non-original appears on Gorta<\/em>, but Madra Salach\u2019s version of Ewan MacColl\u2019s 1966 song \u201cTunnel Tigers\u201d is a hugely impactful one.<\/p>\n

\n\tWritten by the Salford-born MacColl \u2014 father of the late Kirsty MacColl \u2014 to soundtrack a BBC documentary about the Irish workers that dug the tunnels under the River Thames to build the London Underground\u2019s Victoria Line, the band found \u201cTunnel Tigers\u201d through a version by Frank Harte<\/a>, one that is largely faithful to MacColl\u2019s acoustic and atmospheric original.<\/p>\n

\n\tBrought to the band by Banks, bassist Jack Lawlor then proposed \u201ca really fast, charged version\u201d of the song, the singer remembers. \u201cIt brought out a side of the song that wasn\u2019t always explored in the other versions,\u201d he says. On their vicious, punky version of \u201cTunnel Tigers,\u201d Banks ferociously spits out lines in memory of the workers \u201cdriving a tunnel through the London clay,\u201d sung with the relentlessness of shovels hitting the ground over and over.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe song fitting so seamlessly into the modern lens of Gorta<\/em> serves to reduce the perceived gap between traditional folk music<\/a> of old and that being made today. It\u2019s a compliment, Banks says, for many listeners to have assumed that the Madra Salach song \u201cThe Man Who Seeks Pleasure\u201d was written decades ago and passed down. \u201cIt fills me with a lot of pride to have your own writing mistaken for something that has stood the test of time,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you\u2019re writing folk music in the 21st century and try to make it sound like an old song and use words that you wouldn\u2019t normally use, it sounds like playacting or a bit renaissance fair,\u201d he adds. \u201cI like to think that we\u2019ve found a way to write in a way that\u2019s of today and from today, but still very much within the folk ethos.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEmily Lipson*<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tIndeed, it\u2019s easy to imagine \u201cThe Man Who Seeks Pleasure\u201d being spun into countless different versions in the future, reshaped by modern artists to fit their own realities. To Banks, folk songs are \u201cthis living, breathing thing with different characteristics. It feels like it has a soul or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis ethos relates back to the binding concept at the heart of Gorta<\/em>. Through the framework of hunger, Banks\u2019 lyrics explore not only the clearest and most obvious interpretation of the theme, relating to the Irish famine and the long tail of its impact, but a more opaque type of yearning.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn \u201cSearrach\u201d (a young horse), our narrator is \u201cfull but I\u2019m craving,\u201d while on \u201cHaunted Isle of Green\u201d he is \u201chungry no more\u201d yet \u201ccannot shake off what I\u2019ve seen.\u201d Banks says: \u201cOne of the goals of the album thematically is to paint a picture. What is a 21st-century Irish person like? In what context do they exist, and why are we the way we are?<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cAs Irish people, we\u2019re the result of everything that was inflicted on our country and everything that happened in the strange tapestry that is Irish history,\u201d he adds. On \u201cHaunted Isle of Green,\u201d he describes himself as \u201cthe son of the hungry one,\u201d closing an album that signals the true arrival of a special band, both of then and of now.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story was originally published<\/a> by \u201cRolling Stone UK.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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