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By Colin Randall, The Telegraph, Sat 24 Mar 2007
(Web link)

Julie Fowlis, Cuilidh
(Spit and Polish/ Shoeshine)

Few singers producing an album entirely in Gaelic could expect to reach anything but the smallest of audiences. Julie Fowlis, from the Outer Hebrides, rises to the challenge in style, turning a set of hypnotic old songs into implausibly accessible music that never seems old-fashioned.

The dynamism of the opening track will ensure airtime and perhaps spread the word to an even wider public than her previous exploits, including a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award.

But the slow ballads are equally impressive, a tribute to the vocal purity and force that overcomes the language obstacle. It can only be a matter of time before one of Fowlis's less obvious inspirations, Madonna, herself something of a folk fan on the quiet, suggests making a record together.