No Human Tongue Can Tell (Vinyl)

With unique vision, staggering vocal range and a wry sense of knowing, Lankum’s Radie Peat distils the essence of folk music in her solo album No Human Tongue Can Tell. Breathing life into old songs and carrying them forward with new meaning, she both sustains and enriches the Irish singing tradition, her strength of will palpable through poised delivery on each stunning track.

Already one of Ireland’s most influential and revered vocalists as a member of contemporary Irish folk group Lankum, Peat is celebrated for her powerful contralto voice, technical vocal authority, and emotional depth.

Peat’s artistry here, is to create 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’. For this, the album has both an ancient and contemporary feel. Imbued with sagely advice, catharsis for profound suffering, 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.