Radie Peat – The Moon and Stars
One herb does a lot of the work in “The Moon and Stars”: rue, growing in the garden of the man who walked out, and a plant Lankum’s Radie Peat says was used to cause miscarriage. She rewrote parts of this traditional folk song to put the woman’s side on the record, with coded references to unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Her aim, in her words: “I wanted to represent these experiences from the woman’s perspective.” Subtle drones, steady drums and a slow pile-up of percussion and keyboards sit under her voice, and the arrangement builds slowly enough that she stays in front the whole way.
The moon and stars change roles across the lyric. They start as weeping witnesses, turn into the broken promise, and end as a violent noise overhead, lines Peat wrote with the final scene of John B. Keane’s 1959 play “Sive” in mind. In between, the woman sits in her father’s garden to cry it out, and admits she gave herself freely and still wants the time back. It’s the second single from her debut solo album “No Human Tongue Can Tell”, made with John “Spud” Murphy and out 13 November on Rough Trade Records UK.
UK & Ireland
- 3 November 2026: London, Union Chapel (sold out)
- 20 November 2026: Dublin, Vicar Street
- 19 May 2027: London, Barbican
Europe
- 31 January 2027: Amsterdam, Paradiso
- 1 February 2027: Paris, La Trabendo
