Radie Peat releases her debut solo album No Human Tongue Can Tell, out today. Leading up to its release, earlier in the week, Radie Peat also shared new single ‘Willow Garden’ + a live session performance filmed by Western AF at The Hut in Phibsboro, Dublin. One of Ireland’s most influential and revered vocalists, Lankum / ØXN’s Radie Peat distils the essence of folk music, breathing life into old songs and carrying them forward with new meaning, both sustaining and enriching the Irish singing tradition.
‘Willow Garden’ is a traditional 19th-century folk song and famous murder ballad telling the violent story of a man facing the gallows for poisoning, stabbing, and drowning his lover, Rose Connelly. Radie’s solemn delivery sobers us to the ballad’s addressing of the horrors of gendered violence. Peat’s integrity, her empathic vision for the stories, the dreams and struggles of others forms a constellation of experiences that represent women in the folk tradition.
Radie explains the history of the song, “This is a traditional murder ballad, mostly sung in America. There is evidence of its existence in Ireland in 1810 when the tune was noted in the bunting collection, without lyrics, but with the title ‘Rose Connolly’. We appear to have lost it since then in Ireland, but it survived very successfully in the Appalachian’s. The last verse was transcribed by Matt Kinman from “an old fella” he was living up the mountains with for a while, and I’ve never found it anywhere else. Thanks to Matt for writing it down for me in a dive bar in Sylva, North Carolina.”
Forthcoming album No Human Tongue Can Tell is both deeply personal and expansively universal. Reflective, yet pragmatic. Through this collection of folk songs Radie leads with confidence, self-sufficiency and autonomy in her retelling of love stories from the folk tradition. Creating a moment where one woman’s voice represents the voices of many through the ages, or as Peat describes it, “communicating hundreds of years of other people’s experiences, that have been absorbed into the songs from generations and generations before you – binds you with a worldliness beyond the sum of your own experience”. In this respect, the album has both an ancient and contemporary feel. Imbued with sagely advice, catharsis for profound suffering and levity in the midst of desperation, No Human Tongue Can Tell is a collection of songs to reassure us that others have been where we are.
“The seed for this album was planted a long time ago, it’s been ticking along in the background of my head for probably 15 years or so. When I was in my 20s I watched a documentary on Mike Oldfield making Tubular Bells and the idea just stuck that I would like to try record like that, where you write and play all the intersecting parts. I found the idea of being limited by your own mind and abilities, with all the blind spots and personal preferences, very appealing, and I felt it would make something definitively unique, for better or for worse. The collection of folk songs on the album came together easily, and it’s only now I see a thematic link between them. They are largely songs of female struggle, suffering, strength and endurance. But there are many about love as well, with all the complications that brings. I’ve put a lot of myself in this album and I hope it lands where I was aiming for. Musically speaking this album is mostly influenced of the following; Shirley and Dolly Collins, Enya, Lal Waterson, Katie Kim, Jackson C Frank, Karen Dalton, Nellie Weldon, Liam Weldon. I’d like to thank John Spud Murphy for making this album with me, without his talent and patience it simply wouldn’t exist.”
Lankum’s universally acclaimed, Mercury and Ivor Novello Award Nominated fourth studio album False Lankum, collected ‘Album Of The Year’ honours from UNCUT magazine, The Guardian, Loud & Quiet and The Quietus, as well as very high rankings from MOJO, NPR, DIY, Crack, Songlines, Music OMH, The Line Of Best Fit, Louder Than War, The Skinny and numerous other media worldwide. A very special live album followed, Live in Dublin released in January 2025, recorded across three sold out nights at Dublin’s Vicar Street. Lankum’s music has recently featured in several films and TV shows including the film ‘A Want In Her’ (‘The Wild Rover’) and Netflix’s recent hit series ‘House Of Guinness’ (‘Katie Cruel’ & ‘The Granite Gaze’) and the final scene of the recent ‘The Immortal Man’ Peaky Blinders film.
Stream / download ‘Willow Garden’ here.
Listen / purchase No Human Tongue Can Tell here.
