Rough Trade Records are excited to announce the debut solo album by one of Ireland’s most influential and revered vocalists, Lankum and ØXN’s Radie Peat. With unique vision, staggering vocal range and a wry sense of knowing, Peat is celebrated for her powerful contralto voice, technical vocal authority, and emotional depth. She distills 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.
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.
Peat’s voice is resolute on ‘The Moon and Stars’ as she inhabits the song’s expressions of anger. She has also altered the lyrics, defiantly singing, “I wish I’d never seen your face or heard your lying tongue”, Peat utilises the energy of indignation in embodying her protagonist who endures ultimate betrayal and abandonment in her time of need. “There are coded references to unwanted pregnancies and abortions within the song”, Peat explains, “as well as references to rue, a herb which was used to cause miscarriage, I wanted to represent these experiences from the woman’s perspective – to connect us with her experience”. Peat conveys the sense of desperation and constraint. “When I wrote the lines that refer to screeching and roaring, I was recalling the final scene of John B. Keane’s 1959 play, Sive”. Upon learning of her arranged marriage, Sive flees into the night and drowns herself in a bog hole. Peat has incorporated the sentiment of this scene, “Never… if the sun, moon and stars rained down out of the heavens and split the ground under my feet… never!” into her reworking of the song to heighten the sense of fury and desperation.
“The seed for this album was planted a long time ago,” Peat explains of No Human Tongue Can Tell, continuing, “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.”
Pre-order / pre-save No Human Tongue Can Tell here.
Stream / download ‘The Moon and Stars’ here.
