★★★★★
Julie Fowlis's ascent to international stardom, putting Gaelic folk on the world music map, is evidence that a sublime voice transcends language and culture. This fourth studio album returns to her Hebridean home of North Uist (pop 1,254), its dozen songs including lullabies,Victorian poems, antique "mouth music" and folk tales of shape-shifting seals. There are a few jigs and reels, but the songs are the primary force, delivered in a voice as pure and elemental as a Hebridean seashore...
- www.theguardian.com
2014-02-23
★★★★★
Live albums tend to be pretty ropey and, more often than not, produced within an inch of their lives, touched up in the studio with additional instrumentation and technical trickery flattening the sound to such a degree the term 'live' is utterly negated. This beguiling album is the antithesis of such charmlessness - a laid-back, deceptively simple collection which shows the honest craft of Julie Fowlis and her joyful acoustic band in all their persuasive intimacy...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
The pin-up of traditional Scottish folk, Fowlis has touched an audience normally immune to the charms of Gaelic crofters' songs, such is the sweetness of her voice. Drawn from her three studio albums, this live set from last year's Amber festival in Pitlochry finds her and her quartet in immaculate form, skipping between spirited tinwhistle jigs, mournful ballads and her version of McCartney's "Blackbird" ("Lon Dubh")...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2011-01-24
★★★★★
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that musicOMH has never reviewed an artist from the Hebridean island of North Uist before, nor one who sings entirely in Gaelic. Julie Fowlis' welcome appearance on the UK folk scene is a fascinating and very beautiful addition to the rebirth of traditional music that seems to be gathering more momentum by the week. Her star has risen in the past year, ever since she won the best newcomer award at the 2006 BBC Folk Awards...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
When she released her Cuilidh album two years ago, Julie Fowlis notched up a new achievement for Scottish music. Here, after all, was an artist who sang exclusively in Scottish Gaelic but crossed over to a wide audience in England and beyond. Partly, of course, this was the result of the world music boom - audiences are no longer worried by listening to lyrics that aren't in English...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2010-04-02
★★★★★
Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh have a remarkable amount in common. They are both singers and multi-instrumentalists, and both grew up in Gaelic-speaking island communities. Fowlis's husband, bouzouki and fiddle player Éamon Doorley also happens to be a member of Muireann's band Danú. Fowlis, however, is Scottish, while Nic Amhlaoibh is Irish, and this delicate, finely performed set explores the musical links and traditions of the two Gaelic communities...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2010-04-02
★★★★★
An ecstatically received set at this year's Cambridge festival has built up a bit of a buzz around this debut from Gaelic singer and whistle player Julie Fowlis (also of the acclaimed Dòchas). And rightly so; mar a tha mor chridhe ('as my heart is') is a gem of a disc. Pipe tunes, mouth music, jigs and reels nestle alongside songs and ballads, most originating from Fowlis' native South Uist...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2009-06-12
★★★★★
With the recent upsurge in interest in folk, artists that would previously have found small audiences are being pushed into the mainstream, which, while being good for the genre, can throw up some oddities. Just when you think you've got a handle on what's happening, someone else comes along and blows it all apart. Think about it; you're getting used to Karine Polwart's rolling wonders and Seth Lakeman comes along with his fiddle and sends you reeling in another direction...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2009-06-12
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