have emerged as a profound force in Irish music, matching the well-spring of traditional song to some intense, groundbreaking arrangements. t has acted as the fulcrum of this, with her voice helping to blend the old with the new. On her masterful new album ‘No Human Tongue Can Tell’ she borrows from multiple authors, constructing a radiant, singular ode to the female voice within folk song. Assured and timeless work, this is a wonderful, at times almost primeval salute to the permanence of womanhood.

‘Hares On The Mountainhood’ opens the record, with Radie echoing Shirley Collins’ take on the song while adding her own stamp. It’s a suitably accessible though powerful introduction, before leading into the bubbling otherworldly electronics of ‘The Moon And Stars’, akin to Enya’s re-processing of Irish song in the digital environment.

A sombre rendering of ‘Willow Garden’ takes the listener back to the roots, a deeply affecting murder ballad; ‘Same Old Man’ is stark and brutally affecting, Rade wringing out almost North African aspects to the melody. An extensive ‘Dark Horse On The Wind’ is exceptional, the guttural emotion rising and falling in tides of feeling. A sweetly probing ‘Still I Love Him’ is compact but no less affecting, before a sensational ‘Bonnie Boy’ leads in to the transformative, hypnotic finale ‘Caulin Deas’.

A solo work a long time in the making, ‘No Human Tongue Can Tell’ is deeply arresting from first to last, with Radie Peat alternating between loyalty to the source, a commitment to her way of re-telling the story. An exquisite album, it highlights her generational vocal skills, but also her mode of truly inhabiting folk song – ‘No Human Tongue Can Tell’ seems to reach beyond words, existing in pure emotion.

9/10