Radie Peat reclaims «Hares on the Mountain» ahead of solo debut
Lankum and ØXN singer Radie Peat previews her first solo record, No Human Tongue Can Tell, arriving November 13 via Rough Trade.
Radie Peat, the distinctive contralto voice of Lankum and ØXN, is preparing her first solo album, «No Human Tongue Can Tell», for November 13, 2026 through Rough Trade. The single «Hares on the Mountain» opens a collection of nine traditional and folk songs shaped by her own relationship with the stories they carry.
What changes when a traditional song is sung again?
Peat encountered «Hares on the Mountain» through Shirley Collins. Its imagery of animals and pursuit suggests the unequal power relationships embedded in courtship. Rather than treating the song as an untouchable historical object, she brings its female perspective to the foreground, connecting a long musical inheritance to current questions of freedom and autonomy.
This approach is central to the album. Traditional songs have travelled through centuries because performers keep reinterpreting them, not because their meanings remain frozen. Peat is interested in the experiences of women preserved in those narratives and the ways an interpretation can make them audible to a new generation.
Nine songs and a carefully constructed sound
The album includes «Hares on the Mountain», «The Moon and Stars», «Willow Garden», «Luisne», «Same Old Man», «Dark Horse on the Wind», «Still I Love Him», «Bonnie Boy» and «Cailín Deas». They move through desire, grief, betrayal and resilience. The record was made with producer John “Spud” Murphy, who has worked with Peat in the wider world of contemporary Irish folk.
For years Peat had considered making an album on which she could build intersecting instrumental parts herself. That creative independence helps distinguish the project from her ensemble work: rather than simply transfer the sound of Lankum into a solo release, she has made space for intimate arrangements in which voice, instruments and silence interact.
A debut that reconnects past and present
«No Human Tongue Can Tell» will be released on CD, double vinyl and digital formats. Peat’s approach insists that traditional music can sustain a contemporary emotional life without denying its origins. «Hares on the Mountain» is an invitation to hear that relationship before the full album arrives, not grounds for pretending to review nine songs in their entirety.