Released today, Who Is This? is the stunning new single from Scottish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Julie Fowlis, which was co-written with nature writer and best-selling author Robert Macfarlane – also featuring Donald Shaw, Duncan Chisholm and Clockwork Sessions.
Before talking about the new single, it’s worth rewinding the clock a little to appreciate how important music and literature have become in encouraging a stronger bond and understanding of nature and our landscape.
Robert Macfarlane crops up a lot in the pages of Folk Radio, which comes as no surprise when you consider the remarkable crossover between writer and musician in translating their perception of nature and landscape into words and music. This deep-felt connection to the land has brought us some beautiful offerings over the years. Macfarlane has championed other writers such as Nan Shepherd and her passionate ode to the Cairngorm mountains from which others, including Jenny Sturgeon and Rachel Sermanni, have drawn inspiration. He has been touched by such music, which seems to magically capture that essence without words. He co-wrote the liner notes to Toby Hay’s The Gathering, in which he wrote, “The world’s dew gleams on this music, but the world’s dust swirls through it too.” Maybe most poignantly, his 2015 book Landmarks, a “joyous meditation on land and language”, started a path of collaboration that would lead to one of the most well-known folk projects to date – Spell Songs, and its follow-up Spell Songs II: Let The Light In.
As noted by Folk Radio’s Billy Rough, Macfarlane revealed how words, and consequently experiences related to the natural world, were slowly disappearing from children’s vocabulary. As an example, he highlighted the “culling” of words such as acorn, catkin, kingfisher, lark and willow from the Oxford Junior Dictionary in favour of words such as blog, bullet-point, committee and voicemail. The decision to remove and add certain words was made to reflect children’s experiences today, a concerning testament to our modern world. Inscribed in the opening pages of Landmarks is a quote from the Scottish poet Norman MacCaig:
Scholars, I plead with you,
Norman MacCaig (1983)
Where are your dictionaries of the wind, the grasses?
This, in turn, inspired a collaboration with artist Jackie Morris for an illustrated collection of poems, or rather spells and thoughts. Titled The Lost Words: A Spell Book (2017), it and its sequel, The Lost Spells (2020) – enchantments intended to be shared and savoured by adults as much as by children.
Julie Fowlis was among the artists that made up the cast of the Spell Songs project, which many have come to discover, love and nurture its message. Music and literature are increasingly quenching our thirst for deepening our knowledge of nature, and Julie’s “Source to Sea” EP (2022) was another fine example, recorded to accompany the Source To Sea podcast series in which Lee Craigie and Jenny Graham sustainably traversed three Scottish rivers from source to sea by bike, packraft, and foot.
Likewise, Duncan Chisholm presented his own musical monument to nature – namely, the Cuillin mountains on his recent album Black Cuillin, which was, in part, also inspired by Sorley MacLean’s poem An Cuilithionn / The Cuillin, written in 1939.
These same mountains bring Robert Macfarlane, Julie Fowlis, Duncan Chisholm, Donald Shaw and Clockwork Sessions together for “Who is This?“
Looking at images of the snow-capped Cuillin range, it seems ever so appropriate that Julie is the voice here, for it was Robert Macfarlane who said, ‘If snow could sing, it would sing like Julie Fowlis….‘.
Who is This?
‘Who Is This?’ is a song shaped and inspired by the Cuillin (An Cuilithionn) mountains on the Isle of Skye. The Cuillin are the shattered remains of the magma chamber of an immense volcano complex which was active around 60 million years ago. Born of fire and then shaped by ice, they now form a jagged, continuous ridge of tops, razor-edge ridges, scree-and boulder-fields, running for twelve kilometres, comprising twenty-two peaks, and involving over 4000 metres of ascent and descent, much of it technical.
In June this year, Rob set out to attempt the mountaineering traverse of the Cuillin Ridge over two days in the company of radio producer Helen Needham and guide Rich Parker. From the beginning of the journey — when Rob received a spontaneous gift from someone who had come to the Cuillin with the ashes of her father — the mountains surprised, amazed and challenged the group.
After returning, Rob worked with his friend and collaborator Julie Fowlis on a song about the range. Lines and images that Rob had jotted down while on the Ridge formed a basis for the song’s lyrics, which Julie shaped and set to music. She worked on the song with brilliant musician Donald Shaw, who beautifully arranged the song for the Clockwork Sessions strings, conducted by Adam Robinson. The track also features renowned fiddler Duncan Chisholm, whose recent album, The Black Cuillin, is also a response to the range. The title phrase intentionally echoes the refrain from ‘An Cuilithionn 1939’ (‘The Cuillin, 1939’), an epic poem about the mountains (and much more) written by the great Gaelic-language poet Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean).
‘Who Is This?’ features in the second of the two BBC4 radio programmes that Rob made while on the Ridge, produced by Helen Needham; both are available to listen to on BBC Sounds as ‘Crossing the Cuillin Mountains (1 and 2)‘.
“It is always a joy to work with Rob, and over the years and through the process of two Spell Songs albums, we have developed a relaxed and easy way of working together. Long conversations about hills, journeying, and poetry written by one of our greatest poets, Sorely MacLean, who himself was so deeply moved by the Cuillin mountains, led to notes and memos before a foundation of lyrics and melody were created for this project.
We pay tribute to Sorley by including echoes of his epic poem An Cuilithionn (The Cuillin), and the lyrics also reference the woman Rob met on his final approach to the Cuillins, who was carrying her father’s ashes.
It’s a privilege to have worked closely with Donald Shaw and Duncan Chisholm on the recording and to have the Clockwork Sessions string orchestra featured too.
Leis gach deagh dhùrachd,
Julie”
Stream: Who is This? – https://juliefowlis.lnk.to/whoisthis
Vocals: Julie Fowlis
Piano: Donald Shaw
Fiddle: Duncan Chisholm
Strings: Clockwork Sessions
Cover art by Elly Lucas, based on a photograph by Christopher Swan.
String arrangement by Donald Shaw.
Clockwork Sessions strings conducted by Adam Robinson, produced by Kobis Frick and recorded by David Donaldson.
All other recording at Gorbals Sound, engineered by Kevin Burleigh.
Mastered by Calum Malcolm.
