Out of Tomorrows: Members of Landless and Lankum Combine To Create Poor Creature's Spectral Folk
Monday, 15 September 2025
Written by Jeremy Blackmore
Photo: Cian Flynn
Ruth Clinton and Cormac MacDiarmada have entranced audiences with their contemporary takes on traditional Irish folk in their respective bands Landless and Lankum and both had contributed to each other’s records. So, when the couple were confined to their home in Sligo during lockdown, it was only natural that a new collaboration was born.
With The Jimmy Cake’s John Dermody joining later on drums and percussion, the newly formed Poor Creature turned those initial experiments into a captivating, otherworldly debut album called ‘All Smiles Tonight’, which features a mix of traditional songs reimagined and given a unique, personal approach, all sharing a unifying theme of loss and separation.
“We just were at home, as everybody was at the time, and so it was a break from touring and other work. So, there was more time to just mess around,” Clinton says. MacDiarmada, completing the thought, adds: “For the sake of it, not necessarily having any goals, and not having external pressure to reach said goals.”
With a “lovely collection of random bits” at their disposal – instruments belonging to another musician friend who stayed with them during lockdown – they were free to explore new sounds. The first public outing for their homemade experiments came in the form of online gigs during lockdown, something Clinton says helped the material start to take shape. “It was great,” she says. “As brilliant as it is to mess around at home, it does take a bit of a deadline to crystallise it a bit and work out how you might make it work live with all these various instruments.”
They arranged an early recording of An Draighneán Donn for an online streamed event called Box Moon, organised by their friends Natalia Beylis and Decy Synnott, testament to the spirit of community and collaboration in the Irish folk scene at even the bleakest moments of the pandemic. “It was amazing,” Clinton adds. “All these artists and musicians all around the country making videos at home and then uploading them onto Twitch, and we all watched them together. It was this very special moment of community when we were feeling a bit isolated.”
While the record features traditional folk instruments like guitar, fiddle, viola, cello and accordion, all played by MacDiarmada, as well as Clinton’s synth work, the toys they worked with during lockdown also build and add colour and atmosphere. Clinton plays theremin, keytar and a vintage Hohner Organetta, while MacDiarmada deploys the otomatone, a novel Japanese digital instrument, the body of which is shaped like a quaver.
“It has a synth sound,” MacDiarmada says. “It has a rubber mouth that you just open and close. I think when you’re presented with two things, which is a single note, single noise and a high pass filter, you have a limited degree of what you can do, but it’s great fun, because it makes you engage with it in a different way. It can be tricky if you’re dealing with endless possibilities.”
When Dermody joined them, some of the material for the album was already arranged, but there was plenty of room for him to bring his ideas and sound to the project. “Some of the songs were more formalised, especially the ones we had started with the drum machine,” says Clinton. “And then he kind of enriched those and danced around the rhythm of it. And then others, we didn't have rhythm ideas even, like for Willie-o and An Draighneán Donn, and he came up with whatever’s added on there. We hadn’t specified at all, but we'd done the initial tracking, and he was given all that and came up with these amazing percussion lines.”
MacDiarmada remembers the moment they realised bringing Dermody on board to help flesh out their lockdown experiments was a natural fit – at a benefit gig to fund a hip operation for a friend’s greyhound. “The first gig we did, we didn't have any practice or anything,” he recalls. “And, fair play to him, he hopped up and played. It was deadly, having never played before. We were very excited about where it’ll go.”
The final piece of the jigsaw was producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy, who had worked with all their respective bands previously, which was a major benefit. “You’re not starting from zero,” Clinton says. “Like, he would know our voices, and he would also know the way we work, so he’s able to bring the best out in everyone and understand where we're coming from. We have overlapping music tastes as well, so he’d understand the reference.”
MacDiarmada agrees: “He’s an incredible musician, incredible composer, incredible allrounder. He has a massive hand in all those roles as well and his sound is his sound. There’s a fullness there which I don’t see replicated in a lot of producers. I think it’s such a huge strength and such a massive multifaceted thing to have to work with. He knows how to manage the studio. He knows when to push and when to pull back, when to go, let’s have a cup of tea, whatever. He maintains an equilibrium.”
When it came to selecting the traditional songs for the record, they largely chose themselves as personal favourites they sang around the house. “There are a couple of my favourites to sing,” Clinton says. “Maybe I’d been messing around with them very slowly over time, and it was more led by that, rather than now we have these instruments and I need to go look for songs. The songs were already there.”
With Sligo a hotbed of country music, it was natural for them to feature some American old-time songs including MacDiarmada’s solo take on Lorene, a song originally written by The Louvin Brothers and released in 1960. Clinton shares a deep love of country songs, too. “They’re just very direct, very simple storylines, relatable, often,” she says. “They’re enjoyable to sing as well and handy to have to whip out a session also.”
The album opens, though, with the beguiling traditional song Adieu Lovely Erin, which tells the true story of William Hill, a forger from Belfast who was transported to Australia in 1826. Trance-like, it has a strong psychedelic feel, underpinned by Dermody’s looping beats, and plays into Clinton’s background in Landless. “Maybe coming from this background of singing traditional songs that don’t have a conventional verse-chorus structure, I’m really used to learning and singing really long, relentless songs. So, it's curious then to transpose that to psychedelic music, which would maybe have some of the same effects, but coming from a completely different place.”
The Whole Town Knows, originally written by Jimmy and Wanda Helms, has the stark coda “we’ve run out of tomorrows” added as part of the band’s arrangement. Clinton and MacDiarmada harmonise and trade vocal lines before the song builds towards an apocalyptic finale, featuring a cacophony of discordant instrumentation, fortified by some remarkable, propulsive drum work by Dermody, who expanded and improved on Clinton and MacDiarmada’s initial arrangement, which featured a cha-cha-cha beat through a delay pedal.
An Draighneán Donn, the track originally debuted on Twitch during lockdown, sung in the Irish language dates back to 1789. Poor Creature’s rendition begins with overlapping, spectral vocals before giving way to the drama of a big pipe-organ swell, amazingly achieved through a setting on the keytar. “It has that slide thing,” says Clinton. “I’m sure it’s for doing sick solos or whatever, but it detunes the notes so you can hold these chords and then slide it, and it’ll make it warble and sound wonkier.”
As the trio continue to wind their way through a UK and Ireland tour, with audiences promised a full rendition of the new album, Clinton confides that they have enjoyed the collaboration so much, they already have half a new album’s worth of material prepared.
‘All Smiles Tonight’ is out now on River Lea Records.
Poor Creature Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri September 12 2025 - BELFAST Duncairn
Tue September 16 2025 - LEEDS Attic
Wed September 17 2025 - CAMBRIDGE NCI Club
Thu September 18 2025 - SOUTHBOURNE Larder House
Fri September 19 2025 - BRISTOL Strange Brew
Sun September 21 2025 - MANCHESTER YES (The Basement)
Thu November 27 2025 - DUBLIN Button Factory
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