Lankum's Radie Peat details debut solo album, No Human Tongue Can Tell
Lankum vocalist Radie Peat has announced her first solo album, No Human Tongue Can Tell, and shared new single "The Moon and Stars".
No Human Tongue Can Tell is set to arrive as a deeply personal collection of folk songs that lead with confidence, self-sufficiency and autonomy as they retell love stories from the folk tradition.
On "The Moon and Stars", Peat steps into the role of the song's protagonist to express her abandonment and betrayal. "There are coded references to unwanted pregnancies and abortions within the song," she 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 also incorporates the sentiment of the final scene of John B. Keane's 1959 play Sive, in which the protagonist drowns herself in a bog hole upon learning of her arranged marriage, to heighten the sense of fury and desperation.
On the album, which was made with John Spud Murphy, one woman's voice represents the voices of many through the ages. 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."
The idea for No Human Tongue Can Tell first came together fifteen years ago when Peat watched a documentary on Mike Oldfield making Tubular Bells. "The idea just stuck that I would like to try record like that, where you write and play all the intersecting parts," she says. "I found the idea of being limited by your own mind and abilities, with all the blind spots and personal preferences, very appealing."
The collection came together easily, with Peat noting that thematically, the songs largely speak to female struggle, suffering, strength and endurance, though many are also about love with all its complications. Musically, she cites influences including Shirley and Dolly Collins, Enya, Lal Waterson, Katie Kim, Jackson C Frank, Karen Dalton and Liam Weldon.
No Human Tongue Can Tell artwork
No Human Tongue Can Tell tracklist
"Hares on the Mountain"
"The Moon and Stars"
"Willow Garden"
"Luisne"
"Same Old Man"
"Dark Hore on The Wind"
"Still I Love Him"
"Bonnie Boy"
"Cailín Deas"
No Human Tongue Can Tell is released on 13 November via Rough Trade Records
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