Julie Fowlis – Uam

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Folk Music, Folk Music Review, Gaelic music, Julie Fowlis, Uam

Uam, Uam, thank you ma’am

On the cusp of Scotland’s historic vote, it seems only fitting to post a review of one of my favourite ‘daughter of Scotland’ singers, Julie Fowlis, who sings traditional songs – in Gaelic. Her voice is as ever, properly sweet (not cloyingly so) true and clear. I have several albums by Fowlis, first encountered some years ago in a festival in Galway.

I had no idea what she was singing about in terms of precise detail or story but the emotional places she sings from are outwith the need to understand the words. Music can really be language enough

Julie Fowlis, as she always does,  continues to inhabit a musical space of passion, generosity and joyfulness. On this album she also shares songs with other chanteuses of an older generation, Mary Smith and Eddy Reader.  This follows Fowlis’ belief that a song is a gift (Uam means from me) which is passed to the listener, and if that listener is also musical they may pass it on to another listener in performance. So there is the sense of this music being handed down through the generations.

I’m not Scottish, but the sense of ancientness and ‘in the blood’ness in this music is palpable. Maybe its just Fowlis’ own inhabiting of the music with such integrity.

As well as the wonderful strange vocals (but here is a link to the page of her website which lets you read the lyrics in translation into English there are the complex musical rhythms and textures of the instruments to delight the listener

As ever, she’s produced a haunting album, even the songs of sorrowful yearning speak of joy at feeling itself, and the joy of music. Fowlis may indeed be something of a star on the Celtic music scene, but to listen to her albums, and indeed to see her live, is to experience a performer who serves the music, and the audience for that music, not her own ego. All the musicians shine!

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June Tabor – Ashore

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Ashore, Folk Music, June Tabor, Music review

Authentically musical, authentically from the heart

June Tabor’s voice is quite a magical one.  The absolute reverse of technologically manipulated all surface no substance muzak, Tabor sings in a way which draws the listener into their own heart and soul. Her voice is both a clear channel for emotion, and deeply engaged with that. She doesn’t ‘perform’ emotion, she enables the emotion in the music to express itself, rather than expressing her own emotion. Her style is therefore that of surrender to the music and words, so that the listener can engage directly with the music, the language, and the musician serving the music.

I’m a big fan of music which is reflective, and initially was a little disappointed at the tracks which showed another side to Tabor – the French songs, which are more upbeat and playful, and also the tracks, such as the wonderful Selkie, and The Brean Lament, where in part she speaks rather than sings the narration, but I’m slowly coming round to the variety. This is the sort of music which you can imagine listening to, sitting in a snug little pub, somewhere on the Hebridean isles, whilst a storm outside is raging, and Tabor and the musicians take you into the deeps of the sea, and where the sea meets the land.

For me the long opening and closing tracks, Finistere and Across The Wide Ocean, express this most sublimely, and, without anything else, make this 5 star Even if a certain Bank does get in the way a little whenever Tabor sings the word Santander in ‘Finistere’!

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Eliza Carthy – Anglicana

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Anglicana, Eliza Carthy, English folk music, Folk Music

Glee to set toes a-tapping!

This a wonderful album of traditional music from these sceptred isles.

I love the combination of what almost sounds like a scratch band who just happened to pick up some instruments which were lying around, and then launched into playing and revealed how skillful they are. This feels spontaneous (I’m sure it isn’t, but the absence of a ‘produced’ tweaked in a studio feel is what gives rise to the immediate joyousness)

Carthy’s ebulliant and bouncy fiddle playing is hard to sit still with, demanding the listener jig and twirl.

Perhaps this is sacriligious, but I rather prefer daughter to mother, vocally. Norma Waterson is superb at dark strong tough smokiness (even if she doesn’t, for me, touch the parts which only June Tabor can reach in earthy ancestral soulfulness) but that is what she always does. Eliza Carthy has some of this, but there is also a spring and a lightness and flexibility to her voice. At times she sounds sweetly, sorrowfully mellow, (listen to the Bold Privateer without tears threatening, if you can!), but she can mix this all up and sing of joys and frivolities with equal ease.

I had some reservations about the instrumental piece, MCMBE, as I  was more enchanted by the combination of Carthy’s singing and playing, than I was by MCMBE (Martin Carthy MBE) the piece composed by Carthy Junior for dad, and found my attention dipping a bit here, particularly as it jarred for me a little with the English, particularly North Country English, traditional heritage of music, which is the concept of this album. MCMBE is like finding a chapter from a Virginia Woolf book inexplicably in the middle of one by Fielding!

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June Tabor and Oysterband – Ragged Kingdom

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Folk Music, Folk Rock Fusion, June Tabor, Music review, Oysterband

Electrification and melancholy benefit from each other

I saw June Tabor and Oysterband in concert when they were ‘previewing’ what would be tracks from this album.

I went to that concert because of Tabor, but ended up also being seduced by Oysterband as well. Tabor’s dark, brooding voice still reaches most deeply and soulfully I think on the very simply accompanied The Hills Of Shiloh, and/but she is equally at home as chanteuse with the driving rhythms of Oysterband, and a more folk rock fusion. From the exciting opening track Bonny Bunch Of Roses the listener is taken unstoppably through Tabor and Oysterband’s John Jones duetting on Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and Son David.

Here is that exciting, driving, opening track – which they also used to open the gig – I could barely keep seated!

It’s probably wrong to expect a studio album to quite reach the excitement of a live concert, but Jones’ voice seems a touch more exposed, on piano high notes in the studio, against Tabor’s powerful, but never straining vocals, specifically on Love Will Tear Us Apart. Notes which seemed to be pushed through only through felt emotion from Jones in that live performance here seems almost to be the result of technical strain on Love Will Tear Us Apart, though in the tight duetting on Dylan’s Seven Curses Jones soars freely, and he is beautifully tender with Tabor on the closing track The Dark End Of The Street

However, here is a beautiful, un-strained rendition of Love Will Tear Us Apart filmed at Union Chapel London, which I think matches the two voices brilliantly. A little gem, for all broken lovers

Highlights for me are the excitement of the opening track, the aforementioned The Hills of Shiloh, the dynamism and vibrant excitement of If My Love Loves Me – particularly Ian Telfer’s violin, the folk/religious ballad The Leaves Of Life, contrasting again, the driving, punchy beat and some beautiful acapella from Tabor and Oysterband.

But, hey, on subsequent plays, I found myself adding more tracks as highlights!

Oysterband and Tabor seem to spur each other enjoyably on. My big regret on this album is the non-inclusion of a couple of numbers from the live show – an electrifying performance of Jefferson’s Airplane’s White Rabbit and Velvet Underground’s All Tomorrow’s Parties (admittedly the latter one featured on the previous album with June Tabor , and as they were then called, The Oyster Band, 21 years ago) both proving Tabor can out Nico Nico and out Slick Slick. Her voice is truly amazing, and Oysterband have just the energy to match it. Rock’s loss has been Folk’s gain, with Tabor. She could I think sing almost anything .

I love the dark and painful reflective melancholy of Tabor’s vocals, but the drive imposed by Oysterband’s more urgent music works as a brilliant accelerator to Tabor, and she imposes a discipline and restraint well on them, so the balance point between the two is wonderful, electrifying.

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Ragged Kingdom Amazon UK

Julie Fowlis – Cuilidh

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Cuilidh, Folk Music, Folk Music Review, Gaelic music, Julie Fowlis

Breaks your heart and then mends it again

I saw/heard Julie Fowlis (link to her website) as part of an arts festival in Galway a few years ago and found myself alternately with tears pouring down my cheeks and unable to stay seated because of the need to jump, jig, whirl and dance. She has a voice of great and effortless purity, musicality and heart. To listen to Julie sing is to be convinced that opening your mouth and having heavenly sounds pour forth is our natural birthright. Alas that probably isn’t true; its just that her voice is so natural and seemingly uncontrived.

Unless you speak Gaelic (or perhaps another of the Goidelic languages) you won’t have a CLUE what she’s singing about (nor will you care) You’ll just be amazed at her apparent facility to be singing tongue twisters with precision and speed (try Puirt-a-Beul-Set and I defy any listener to stay composed and seated!)

The charm, skill and passion of these songs are beautifully rendered by Julie and the musicians with fiddle pipe and drum – and for those coming to her music via MP3 and so missing the lyrics in translation I think you can find them in translation on her own site

It may or may not aid your enjoyment!

Unfortunately this particular album is not available to listen to on mp3 on Amazon, but the store page of Julie Fowlis’ site DOES have tracks on 30 sec listen, though you may have to download a particular player

However, the Youtube video IS of one of the tracks. Curiously, what the video doesn’t do justice to is the way Julie engages with and connects with a live audience. I suspect there was a degree of ‘production for camera’ in this – I’ve seen her in concert on a couple of occasions now, and she is one of those performers who seems to sing just for you alone. All several hundred of you.

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