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The Highlands’ landscape, flora, fauna, and culture have long inspired poets, artists, and musicians. Highlands, an album titled after that region, touches on many different elements that make that spectacular part of Scotland what it is. Fiddle player Ewen Henderson (who has been a part of the Battlefield Band, Mànran, the Afro Celt Sound System) plays a central role on the album, described that inspiration: “Growing up in the Highlands, surrounded by the music and culture of the area, I have long been deeply aware of its ability to feed the soul and heal the heart and mind. The continuous stream of this power flows throughout the soundtrack.” Highlands is the latest in the Fresh Handmade Sound series (which began in 2011) from Lush, a company known for its handmade cosmetics and spa treatments. Like the preceding themed albums, folk music is at its musical core, blended with cinematic soundscapes, this one featuring Scottish native birds recorded by The Sound Approach. As with previous offerings, it accompanies a spa treatment, and this one is a 60-minute full-body hot stone massage.
The other main protagonists on Highlands are singer, whistle player and broadcaster Julie Fowlis, the late Simon Emmerson (Working Week, Afro Celt Sound System, The Imagined Village – he joined Lush Cosmetics as musical director in 2008), to whom the album is dedicated, musician, engineer, producer Richard Evans (he was involved with Emmerson in the preceding Fresh Handmade Sound albums) and musician, producer and DJ Simon Richmond (he co-produced the last two Imagined Village albums and was also involved in previous Fresh Handmade Sound releases). The story told on the Highlands starts in the heather meadows and progresses, noting the shifts in nature and weather through the seasons, as a journey up the unavoidable Highland mountain – that part not unlike Duncan Chisholm’s extraordinary Black Cuillin – and a return journey regaled in song by tales of women waulking cloth, a supernatural deer herder, and swans and apple trees as symbols of other things. The two halves are neatly presented on the respective sides of the vinyl edition of the album.
The first half of the journey to the top of the mountain is, with the exception of one song, a set of instrumentals composed by Emmerson, Evans and Henderson. Birdsong at the beginning of Cluaintean Gàidhealach (Highland Meadow) helps to depict the meadow’s life. Henderson’s wispy fiddle brings images of seeds drifting on the wind to mind. Of these early instrumentals, those where Henderson’s excellent traditional fiddle playing is to the fore work best. To my ears, the electronic, ambient-like passages occasionally overwhelm the acoustic instruments.
There is a comforting simplicity in the first half of the song, Ceithir Gaothan na h-Alba (The Four Winds of Scotland), which is sung as enthrallingly as ever by Julie Fowlis, with just piano, played by Oliver Cox, and fiddle from Henderson for accompaniment. The song was written as a poem in the early 1940s by George Campbell Hay and set to music by Fowlis and Cox, originally for Cox’s 2021 film When These Rocks Were Still Young about the landscape of Scotland. The words portray Hay’s deep-rooted connection with the land through the seasons: ‘The leaves of Summer, the spate of Autumn, the snowdrifts and the high Spring wind is she’…. All year long, each season through, each day and each fall of dusk for me; it is Scotland, Highland and Lowland, that is laughter and warmth and life for me.’
Reaching the summit is celebrated with Danns’ air a’ Bheinn (Dance On The Mountain), a lively traditional-like dance tune that benefits significantly from the addition of guitar-bouzouki, accordion, and bodhrán, played respectively by Éamon Doorley (Julie Fowlis’ husband and frequent musical partner and Danú member), Ben Murray (Tarras), and Martin O’Neill. They also play on Guthan nan Sinnsearan (Voices of the Ancestors), which immediately precedes the dance tune, the album’s longest track.
The second half of the return journey has a different, contrasting feel, comprising five traditional songs sung in Gaelic. The songs are interspersed with passages of bird song, pleasingly a little longer than on the first half instrumentals, mixed with subtle synth/keyboard sounds courtesy of Simon Richmond, attributed as ‘sound design’, that works very well, and it also graces four of the five songs. Julie Fowlis said of the songs: “I feel even though some of these songs are pretty old, some that I sing might be several hundred years old, there is a strength and a truth to these songs. A lot of the songs we chose are deeply connected to the Highland landscape.”
The first of the second half songs, Tha Sneachd Air Druim Uachdair (There Is Snow On Drumochter), is sumptuous – bird song, followed by a mournful fiddle refrain from Henderson before Fowlis’s captivating singing of a song that refers to the main mountain pass between the northern and southern central Scottish Highlands. According to tradition, in the early part of the 17th century, the author of the song, Farquhar MacRae, became an outlaw after he had killed a clan chief. After spending seven years hiding in the Highland hills – ‘There’s snow on Drumochter where I was herding cattle’ – he was able to return home as, according to custom at the time, if he spent seven years without being caught, he could avoid any given punishment. The latter half of the track is a fine instrumental interpretation of the melody on fiddle and also whistle played by Henderson, with key contributions from Doorley (guitar-bouzouki & bouzouki ) and O’Neill (bodhrán & cymbals).
Anyone familiar with Julie Fowlis’s singing will recognise the distinctive rhythm of the waulking song Chaidh mi na Bheinn (I Went To The Hill). Her singing here is nothing short of beguiling, aided by the same instrumental combination as the previous song. The fascinating history of these unusual songs is fully outlined in the sleeve notes: ‘[They] were traditionally sung by a group of between eight and twelve women while waulking (fulling or shrinking) cloth. The women were usually seated round a table on which the wet, newly woven length of cloth was placed. During the waulking, they would rhythmically pass the cloth clockwise from hand to hand, each singer beating it against the table, to felt and shrink it, thereby making it more wind and waterproof.
…Waulking cloth was heavy, wearisome work that took hours to complete and the songs were used to ease the burden. One person would sing out the verse and then the others would join in the chorus.’
A lovely traditional tune played on the whistle by Henderson precedes Cailleach Beinne Bric (The Old Woman of Ben Breck), on which he ably sings lead vocals. Fowlis joins in on the chorus, and the whistle tune is reprised at the end. The song tells the tale of a supernatural deer herder who had power over the weather to foil deer hunters’ plans, but she was friendly to outlaws and often warned them about their pursuers.
Port na h-Eala (Swan’s Song) is a short, uncluttered song with a playful, lullaby-like melody about some of the Highland myths and beliefs about swans sung by Fowlis (she also adds shruti). Fowlis sang it in 2020 for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day for the Sam Lee Nest Collective. The final song, Craobh nan Ubhal (Tree Of Apples), previously included on Fowlis’s 2021 Source to Sea EP, is a compelling love song from the island of Islay, apparently dating back to the late sixteenth century; the apple tree used as an image of the important chief an anonymous woman is in love with. It features Joseph Peach on piano, Charlie Grey on fiddle, Doorley, and additional vocals from Henderson.
The journey from meadow to mountain top and down ends at the seashore with Cladaichean Eilean Ìdhe (Iona Shores), a beautifully calming minute and a half of lapping sea and seagulls.
With consistent first-rate fiddle playing and musicianship throughout and every song a complete delight, the many sublime moments more than warrant listening to, in or out of the spa.
Highlands (27th September 2024) Cosmetic Warriors
Pre-Save: https://lush.lnk.to/Highlands
The physical release was pressed on eco-vinyl by Seabass Vinyl, Scotland’s first vinyl pressing plant. Seabass Vinyl’s purpose-built factory aims to become the most sustainable vinyl pressing plant in the world by generating 40% of its energy on-site from solar and wind sources, and are committed to functioning with as little environmental impact as possible.
The vinyl comes with a free digital download of the record with additional bonus tracks and an album-length video of stunning Scottish Highlands scenery, as well as a poster & lyric booklet with insights on the songs and translations. Glasgow-based illustrator Abbie Lois created the sleeve artwork in response to the unique folklore and culture of the Scottish Highlands. Lois works closely with the ecology and history of the environment in her printmaking, and has produced her own take on the album’s central themes.
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