With lush, lilting vocals, a spritely countenance, and the perfect mixture of sweetness and strength, the talented siren Julie Fowlis has revitalized the genre of Celtic music in just a few short years. Born on North Uist, a tiny island off the coast of Scotland, Fowlis has been making waves in Britain and beyond. She was named the 2008 Folk Singer of the Year by BBC Radio 2 Folk Music Awards, and is quickly making a name for herself on the international scene. If you reside in Washington, California, or Colorado, you’ll have the chance to catch her live at the end of the month for a brief US tour.

Julie Fowlis’s music is at once strikingly youthful and timeless. Singing primarily in Scottish Gaelic (a language which only about 1% of the Scottish population can speak), her voice brings both her language and culture dancing to life with an almost unearthly presence. Her songs, delicately adorned with vibrato-charged fiddles and deftly careening whistles, carry the listener off to another world that she has preserved with great care in both style and content. They come from generations and centuries past, yet Julie infuses them with glowing virility.

Cuilidh, which means “treasury” in Gaelic, is truly packed with gems. “Ille Dhuinn, ‘S Toigh Leam Thu,” which incorporates an element of regional and family history, was actually written by the woman who was to marry Julie’s great, great, great uncle. It begins with a wistful piano solo and is sung in a sweet but mournful tone, as the girl’s parents wished for her to marry a man who was “an owner of ships and galleys” instead of Julie’s relative, who was poor but whom she’d loved from a young age. Few of us are lucky enough to even possess love letters of ancestors beyond our grandparents, so the existence of this relic frozen in time is remarkably powerful.

The album’s “Puirt-a-beul Set” is a collection of tunes in a style called “mouth music” that is specific to Celtic regions. With the complicated, rhythmic patterns that the voice creates, it could easily be likened to scat singing, and therefore the lyrics tend to be fairly simple and deal with subjects from the bawdy to the ridiculous. It’s a great example of the kind of Celtic music that makes me want to throw back a pint of ale and kick my heels up in dance…but that may be just me.

The Special Edition of Cuilidh comes with the original album, a short film about Julie, as well as five live tracks. Still, the most exciting addition is the single “Lon-dubh,” a Scottish Gaelic version of The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” which Paul McCartney actually wrote while in Scotland. It would be virtually impossible to count the number of artists who have covered this song in the past. However, with precise, intricate finger-picking, a gentle and graceful violin, and Julie’s voice ringing as clear as a bell but gliding softer than silk, this version (along with the entire album) is its own work of art.

February 21, 2009, 8:00 PM, Northshore Performing Arts Center, Bothell, Washington
February 26, 2009, 8:00 PM, Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, California
February 27, 2009, 8:00 PM, McCabes, Santa Monica, California
February 28, 2009, 8:00 PM, Oriental Theatre, Denver, Colorado
March 1, 2009, 7:00 PM, Ft Lewis College Concert Hall, Durango, Colorado