Fresh Gael
Listening Post 5. If you’ve heard that Scottish Gaelic is an endangered language, then listening to Julie Fowlis might cause some cognitive dissonance. Her voice is so angelic it seems more likely that people would be studying just to be able to understand her. One critic describes her as “pure as a Highland spring”—she grew up in the Outer Hebrides and now makes her home in the Highlands—and her fourth album is, indeed, a piece of the Gaelic renaissance. Gach Sgeul (Every Story) includes songs from the slow and melancholy to joyful puirt-a-buel (“mouth music”) tunes and is backed by a variety of traditional instruments (fiddle, harmonium) as well as the bouzouki, which has been part of the Celtic revival since the 1960s. Two high points of the set are the lively Ribinnean Riomhach (Beautiful Ribbons, video 1), and the touching An Roghain Dain Do Eimhir XXII (The Choice, video 2). If you want to hear something in Gaelic that’s more accessible, listen to Fowlis’ rendition of the Beatles’ Blackbird (video 3), released as a single in 2008. (Machair Records)