Julie Fowlis review – 'Scottish Gaelic songs with clear, gently thrilling vocals'

Julie Fowlis has changed the face of Scottish music by proving that an artist singing almost exclusively in Gaelic can become an international success and even break into Hollywood. What is more remarkable, however, is the way in which she has managed to move into the mainstream without compromising her approach. She may have provided songs for the Disney Pixar animation Brave and established a second career as a radio presenter, but she is still a traditional singer whose aim is to research and revive Gaelic songs – many of them from North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, where she was brought up.

Six years ago, I watched her performing in the little village hall on the island, and she treated this concert in much the same way, mixing an easy-going stage style with clear, gently thrilling vocals. She arrived wearing a tartan jacket and focused on songs from her new album, Gach Sgeul – Every Story, which includes material she collected in North Uist. Her entire set was in Scottish Gaelic, with the exception of a few lines of her charming Gaelic reworking of the Beatles' Blackbird, but she was careful not to alienate her audience, and explained every song.

She was backed by a subtle and classy acoustic trio: her husband, Éamon Doorley, playing bouzouki guitar; Tony Byrne on guitar; and thoughtful fiddle work from Duncan Chisholm. There was no percussion, and Fowlis herself added whistle and harmonium. Her songs included rapid-fire "mouth music", ballads, praise songs, a traditional lullaby and an a capella story about seals. The finest were the saddest. Donald Shaw's setting for a poem of lost love by Sorley MacLean, and Do Chalum, a lament for a young man, were the highlights of an exquisite, gently emotional set.