Julie Fowlis
Uam
Shoeshine

This third solo album from the Scots-Gaelic singer has everything: waulking songs, milking songs, Harris-Tweed shrinking songs, murder ballads, a Barra clapping song, a night visiting song, tales of Mediaeval Scots honour killings, a Breton sea ballad, music composed for a cousin’s wedding.

It centres on Fowlis’s clear voice carrying intensely sad, pretty melodies, but the album is also full of distinctive rhythms, tapped out on a bodhran on “Thig Am Bàta” or simply in the interplay of voices on “Bodachan Cha Phós Mi”.