Alterum - Julie Fowlis

Track list:
   
1. A Phiuthrag 's a Phiuthar
2. Camariñas
3. Fear a' Bhrochain / Dòmhnall Binn
4. Dh'èirich Mi Moch, b' Fheàrr Nach Do Dh'èirich
5. Go Your Way
6. Dh'èirich Mi Moch Madainn Cheòthar
7. Windward Away
8. Thèid Mi Do Loch Àlainn
9. Òran an Ròin
10. An Aghaidh Fàilte Na Mòr-Thìr
11. Cearcall Mun Ghealaich

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 2017

New release time. First listen. All the usual caveats.

I wrote that line a long time back, when this dropped through my door and got elevated to next in line. As seems to be customary these days, I have to preface this post with excuses for not having been productive on the project front - a combination of illness, tiredness, a busy life and, if I am honest, prioritizing other things over listens. I'm going to try to squeeze in two this Thanksgiving... whilst I am in the UK I am taking these 2 days as holiday as all my US colleagues are out and I had days left to take this year.

Right, that done, on to it.

Julie Fowlis' voice is charming though I don't understand a word of her songs, the Scots Gaelic impenetrable to my ear. It comes across as a lyrical language, but then that could just be the context. After all, putting words to song is going to exhibit the more lyrical aspects of a language more often than not. The first tune is a gentle strummed core, backing strings and a lilting, swaying rhythm with natural swells and long held notes. Entirely pleasant, but nothing to get excited about.

I am not used to this - my back is complaining about my posture sat up and forward at the keys, hunched over slightly. Another little challenge I guess. The music on is now more stripped back, the lush backing of the swells from the opening number replaced with a more lonely string line. I found the first track more engaging somehow... more soothing. Here the duet worked but also it rather obscured Fowlis' tones, and I buy her music for two things: 

1. Upbeat folk tunes
2. Her wonderful voice

Thankfully both are in evidence on the third track, which has the tone and tempo of a dance tune and a clearly sung main vocal. There is sunshine through broken clouds in these sounds, images of mountains and islands and a cool but lovely summers evening's light. Yes, tunes like this are stereotypical, but they are so for a reason. Not all stereotypes are bad, and most are rooted in some level of reality - if exaggerated for effect. The jigs, reels, tunes and songs of the isles are a pretty well defined body of work, and to me, a soft southerner working in tech, with no aptitude for country living but an admiration for it (I spend many a Sunday evening with Countryfile, for some reason!), they paint an idyllic (and unrealistic) picture of the beauty of that kind of existence. 

Ah, now we get a number in English and whilst the singer's voice is clearly the same, some of the magic is lost. Yes, it's still a fantastic voice, warm and inviting, but the mystery of the foreign tongue is gone, and I find that it takes a little away from the experience. Why should that be? Well, I guess it's a form of "othering" the songs, but whereas that is usually used in a negative light, here the other is part of what appeals. A sense that this is not my music or heritage, but one I am lucky enough to have been exposed to. I dunno. I am so out of practice with these posts that I suspect the flow of thoughts that I find myself with now is 99% crap and 1% flim-flam. 

So far so good though. A couple of ups and downs but the disc is pretty much what I would have expected, what I wanted from it. I'd like a couple more of the pacier tunes where Fowlis is able to convey an impish sense of fun and joy but I suspect that is just me looking back to the point when I first came across her work with a sense of nostalgia and ossification. I have definitely noticed myself being less enchanted by new things of late, which is a saddening thought. Still, despite that I have still bought more than I have made posts in the last quarter so it's not all bad.

Overall the tone of this album seems to be more sombre, which is a bit of a disappointment, not because it isn't good, but because right now I could do with a bit of a lift. And as I typed that sentence the song that was playing turned from slow, mournful tones to quick, lively ones with a very light vocal. Doubt erased. Good stuff. 

The final track is another slow number but it has a couple of really nice touches. First the spoken (English) intro, and then the harmony between two female voices. A poem set to music to close us out. Overall, yes this is a question of more of the same. No, that is not (always) a bad thing. Change and evolution are welcome developments, but sometimes... Sometimes you want something comfortable and familiar - even whilst it is "othered".