Shooglenifty

“…still the original and best.” The Scotsman

“This virtuoso band started building crescendos from the start, each one higher than the last, until the final, shuddering chord left the roaring crowd breathless and cheering wildly” Evening News

Groundbreaking Scottish mavericks Shooglenifty push the word 'traditional'to its limits with their unique blend of dance vibes and roots music. Genuinely genre defying, they have been described as everything from "acid croft" to "hypnofolkadelia." Journalists may compete for words to describe, but all agree they are virtually impossible not to dance to and one of the best live bands of their genre around. Over the past dozen or so years Shooglenifty’s unique twist on trad has won them an extensive and devoted fanbase not only across Europe, the US and Australasia, but as far afield as India, Malaysia and Japan.

Previous career highlights include performing for Nelson Mandela and Emperor Akihito of Japan (not both at once), and playing in Cuba a full year before the Manic Street Preachers' much-vaunted Louder than War gig in 2001. Back in 1996, meanwhile, Shooglenifty became the first band ever to incite a stage invasion at Sydney Opera House.

Shooglenifty's line up is Angus Grant on fiddle, Luke Plumb on mandolin and banjo, Garry Finlayson on banjax, Malcolm Crosbie on guitar, Quee MacArthur on bass and James Mackintosh on drums and percussion. The band's collective CV takes in backgrounds as diverse as Crosbie's apprenticeship in alt.rock obscurity, Finlayson's early blues fixation and Grant's childhood immersion in the West Highland fiddle tradition. Beneath their folky-looking exterior lurk electric as well as acoustic guitar, samples and programming as well as "real" percussion, while Finlayson switches between regular banjo and his own customised hi-tech version, or "banjax". All six players, though, are maestros of effects, distortion, feedback and - crucially - improvisation.

The resulting sound marries traditionally based tunes - primarily Scottish in style, but featuring a wealth of other world-music flavours - with the rhythmic energy, inventiveness and sophistication of contemporary dance music. Such a description, though, hardly begins to capture the dazzling multi-layered intricacy, exquisitely jewelled lyricism and intoxicating, coruscating grooves that are Shooglenifty's hallmarks. The band's own, none-too earnest attempts at capsule descriptions include "hypno-folkedelic ambient trance" and "acid croft".

Their new album Murmichan is released in October 2009 and follows hot on the heels of ‘Troots’ which was described by The Guardian as “predictably classy” displaying their trademark scope, scale and wildness with fiddle and mandolin playing off each other across a bewildering array of grooves.