Kerry Dexter

Julie Fowlis knows a bit about putting soul into her music, too. In her case, that involves conveying emotion and meaning to people who mostly do not speak the language in which she sings. Fowlis sings in Scots Gaelic, which is spoken by fewer than one per cent of the people in Scotland, never mind the rest of the world, and she’s celebrating the US relase of her second album, called Cuilidh..

Fowlis comes from North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland, or as she says, “far out.” There she grew up with the language, the history, the stories, and the music. Some of the songs she sings are recent, and some go back centuries. They might speak of tragedies -- or they might speak of cabbage on the table or the cow outside. “These people were on the edge of the world,” Fowlis says of those who composed the songs. “The weather was extreme, and the conditions were hard. Through music and song, they were very expressive people. They were always singing and writing poetry. It could be something light hearted, like the food on the table or what washed up on the beach, or it could be something completely beautiful.”

That range of emotion and connection to story is what Fowlis brings her listeners, whether they understand Scots Gaelic or not. Cuilidh means treasure, and on the recording Fowlis includes both the lively and the sad, love songs and a song about potatoes and butter. Fowlis is also an accomplished player on the whistle and the highland pipes [and has a degree in classical music too] and there’s a set of jigs to include that, as well. Hug Air a’ Bhonaid Mhor, in English called Celebrate the Great Bonnet, makes a fine and lively opener, and ‘Ille Dunn,’ S Toigh Leam Thu, My Brown Haired Boy, is a fine ballad. It’s easy to hear why Fowlis has won a batch of awards in the UK, and how her music speaks across the boundaries of language and time. “I'm more than happy to sing English, but right now this is what I feel called to do,” she says. “This is what love and know.”

Julie Fowlis is celebrating the US release of Cuilidh with a brief tour in the United States, including appearances at the Lotus Festival in Bloomington, Indiana and Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts.