Bathtime never sounded so good, as Lush launch the latest (and the last) of their Simon Emmerson helmed Celt Soundsystem, featuring Julie Fowlis.

Release Date: 27th September 2024

Label: Cosmetic Warriors (Lush)

Format: Vinyl / digital

Various artists is maybe a slight misnomer, as, broadly, this comes under the heading of the collective, Lush Handmade Sound, who, under various names and titles have been the aural mouthpiece for Lush cosmetics. Yes, Lush, whose products we may well have bought for wives and girlfriends, or had bought for us, if we are. Or even if we’re not, but a perhaps too well kept secret is their long linkage with Simon Emmerson, the late maestro behind Afro Celt Soundsystem and The Imagined Village.

Indeed, it was Lush who founded and released the second album by the latter project, together with a few selected and related subsequent releases, usually featuring artists integrally involved with Emmerson’s various ventures. ECC is no more but Lush have continued to sponsor and curate further releases, usually tying in with the launch of a new range of cosmetics. This is the latest and, presumably, the last with the hand of Emmerson involved.

Here, as the title might anticipate, there is a Gaelic theme, necessitating the introduction of some further names into the collective. So alongside Emmerson, and other regulars Richard Evans, Ged Lynch, and Simon Richmond, this has the twin talents of Julie Fowlis and Ewen Henderson. Fowlis should need no introduction, one of the premier doyennes of Gaelic song, but Henderson may: he is a force of fiddling, and a strong singer, and always an integral part of the various bands he had worked with: The Battlefield Band, the Afro-Celts themeselves, and currently Mànran. Elsewhere appear names such as Eamonn Doorley (aka Mr Fowlis), Ben Murray and Martin O’Neill, and the duo of Joseph Peach and Charlie Grey. Run yourself a bath, put on your cans, let’s see what’s in store.

It is with a drone and birdsong that the project opens, a fiddle, from Henderson, then opening out to offer a lilting lament. If the birdsong sounds authentic, it should, it being found and recorded by The Sound Approach, specialists in exactly that. Together there is a slight feel of the dawn sequence from Floyd’s Echoes, if with a distinctly Hebridean slant. Some piano and percussion blend in toward has become an ambient wash of synthesised sound, over which the fiddle is now throwing out a jig. The balance between organic and FX shifts back and forth, some wordless moaning all part of the mix. (You will note, by and large, I am not naming specific tracks. In part this is as they tend to blend and blur, one into the other, and also because, all being Gaelic titles, they add little to other than the wordcount, without possession of that tongue)

A storm seems to be slowly brewing as the next piece begins; no unlikely finding in this part of the world, where you can forget your four seasons in one day, it is just as likely each hour. Or minute, the instrumentation here mainly to add atmosphere, before the first song, which starts as a simple ballad between Fowlis. With Oliver Cox, on the piano, her voice is pure and clean, like a salty sea breeze, the song a reprise of when the same duo performed it for a film, made by Cox, in 2021. Henderson adds haunting fiddle before waves are heard breaking the shore. Tinkling mandolin, possibly bouzouki or cittern, heralds the input of Emmerson, before a further slow smouldering fiddle air from Henderson. And those storm clouds are back. Bhodran, maybe hand drum, pitters a regular patter, with the fiddle falling into step, bringing a march like quality, as fits the desired effect, the title meaning the climbing.

The longest track, a full ten minutes plus, follows. A pretty remarkable hybrid of sound textures, this combines Evans’ and his studio gadgets with the more organic. This track, and I will give it’s name, Guthan Nan Sinnsearan, or Voices Of The Ancestors, is possibly only track that stands out alone, as a single piece, the others, good as they are, tending to be better heard in the context of those about them. Starting with guitar and synthesiser, a scratchy sound gives a sense of momentum. As electronic notes shard across the melody, it is, once more, quite Floydian, especially as it slowly builds, before breaking out and upping the gears, lurching into a juddery passage and pattern, again like Echoes, a bit later on. Henderson then reels in, with his fiddle, to remind you where you are, more wordless moaning giving a further flavour of the Gods and their wishes. And if that is electric guitar, it could be, but it is possibly uillean pipes. Let’s call it bagpipe guitar. I like this track. A lot. Turn it up!

It must have gone well, as what follows is definitely a celebration; even I know what ‘danssa’ is in English. This is where Doorley, Murray and O’Neill come on, on bouzouki, accordion and bodhran respectively, and it becomes a ceilidh, and, probably, a feast, smacking of fire, animal skin and horns for tankards. More wordless moaning, before all winding down, like dying flames, possibly for the night. If so, it is bright and early, for the next, with geese honking on the horizon. Henderson again ups fiddle, and Fowlis sings beautifully, an old Gaelic song around snow on the mountains. It needs little backing, and little is given. As it limbers up, guitar and percussion appear, with otherworldly additional Fowlis’s adding some off kilter keening. Sticking with this pair, and a cittern accompaniment, Fowlis then breaks into a waulking song, the rhythm of working the cloth becoming stepwise more apparent, an effect heightened by the backing call and response chorale. Very reminiscent of the sound Capercaillie were seeking back in 1991, for breakthrough album Delirium.

An interlude of birdsong beckons in Henderson for his first solo song, which unfolds over a drone and whistle (Fowlis?) backing. His voice is rich and peaty, with Fowlis adding later harmonies. The whistle paired with the birds, makes for a delightful basis, to also bring the song to an end. It then connects directly through further found sound, into another Fowlis contribution, her vocals even sounding to mimic birdsong. As she multi-tracks, it wafts over fiddle and shruti box backing. We are nearing conclusion now, her final salvo sounding a near lullaby. Joined by Peach and Grey, their piano and fiddle add soothing tones, a song she has herself previously covered. It is gently beautiful, with Henderson adding his vocal to hers for the final chorus or too. Waves and gulls signal it then all over.

This is a pretty special record. It is a lot more than advertising music or promotional soundtrack, with legs well able to stand alone. It is worth checking out and sourcing, taking also the time to investigate all the other myriad releases in the Lush aural portfolio.

Here is one of the Fowlis contributions, Tha Sneachd Air Druim Uachdair, the one about snow on the mountains, which is roughly as it translates.

Lush online: Website / Bandcamp

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