Radie Peat Releases New Song 'Hares On The Mountain' From Forthcoming Solo Debut Album No Human Tongue Can Tell

Rough Trade Records today share new single, ‘Hares on the Mountain’, taken from the forthcoming debut solo album by one of Ireland’s most influential and revered vocalists, Lankum / ØXN’s Radie Peat. Radie learnt of the song through Shirley Collins and it is the opening track on the album. In the role of protagonist, she ponders anthropomorphically on the unjust gender dynamics in courtship. But ruminations of revenge resolve with pursuits of personal growth and learning. In both Radie’s handling of this song and her curation of references to musical heroes throughout the album, she conveys vignettes of female experience through the lives they lived and the songs they sang.

With her 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 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.

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.

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"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."

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