Shooglenifty Scotland

Shooglenifty was formed in 1990 by musicians from the Scottish Highlands, Orkney and Edinburgh, its bright spark was the idea of fusing traditional and traditional-sounding melodies with the beats and basslines of a mixed bag of more contemporary influences. As happy playing a small highland village hall as they are on a outdoor festival stage playing to tens of thousands, the Shoogles (as they’re known to their fans) have promoted Scottish music all over the world for more than a quarter century.

In 2015 they played venues in Sarawak and Stornoway, Lorient and London, Adelaide and Aberdeen, Bangalore and Bristol, and released their seventh studio album The Untied Knot. This featured the first ever collection of Shoogle songs and introduced their newest member, puirt à beul vocalist Kaela Rowan. It received a 5* ‘Top of the World’ rating in Songlines, among many other favourable reviews. Songlines also nominated the band for Best Group in early 2016. The Untied Knot was nominated for Best Album at ‘Na Trads 2015’ – the Scottish Traditional Music Awards.

The band’s gig calendar for 2016 included festivals in The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, England, and, of course, Scotland. They were nominated for Best Scottish Group at the Sunday Herald Culture Awards in July 2016, manfully losing out to Scottish Opera.

In October 2016, the band lost their fiddler Angus R Grant, and took the end of that year to take a well-earned pause. They were bowled over by the numerous tributes and stories shared about their influential front man, not to mention the outpouring of love for Angus on social media. In January 2017 they channelled that emotion into a tribute gig for Angus at Celtic Connections featuring no less than 62 musicians who were all touched by his music.

2017 was about re-grouping, recording and beginning work on a documentary, tentatively entitled The High Road to Who Knows Where, about the band and Angus’s influence on Scottish music over the past three decades. In June 2017, the band released a live video from the Celtic Connections concert featuring the talents of six leading Scottish fiddlers: Adam Sutherland, Charlie McKerron, Duncan Chisholm, Eilidh Shaw, Gavin Marwick and Laura Wilkie.

In December 2017, A Night For Angus won Event of the Year at the Scottish Traditional Music Awards (Na Trads).

The documentary is slated for release in 2021, at Celtic Connections.

In February 2018, Eilidh Shaw joined the band as permanent fiddle player. Eilidh is a West Highland fiddler with a playful, infectious energy who was taught by Aonghas Grant (our Angus’s father).

The Shoogles’s 8th studio album Written in Water was released in November 2018 . Recordings took place at the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur in October 2017 in 40 degree heat! Written in Water is a joint project between Shooglenifty and Rajasthani supergroup Dhun Dhora, with whom the band have been playing with since 2014. Literally meaning ‘Music of the Dunes’ Dhun Dhora hails from the Thar Desert north west of Jodhpur, close the the Pakistani border. The band’s members are all traditional musicians who have been playing for as long as they remember and their performing lineages go back at least ten generations in each case.

Performing in two minority languages – Gaelic and Marwari – Shooglenifty and Dhun Dhora know how rich their own traditional cultures are and are at the forefront of keeping them very much alive. They may converse in different tongues but they speak the same language musically. The project is very much a live interplay of equals rather than two bands bolted together for the short term. The Indian musicians, used to a life of patronage and playing to order, were a little reticent in the early days. But they have responded, over the past few years, to the deep respect and friendship offered by the Scots and together they have developed a mischievous improvisational musical kinship that is a delight to witness.

Instrumentation on the album includes Shooglenifty’s regular line up of fiddle (supplied by the amazing Laura Wilkie), mandolin, guitar, banjo, bass, drums and vocals plus Dhun Dhora’s majestic dhol drummers Swaroop, Sattar, Channan and Pyaaru Khan Manganiyar, über vocalist and harmonium player Dayam Khan Manganiyar, morchang and bhapang specialist Latif Khan Manganiyar, master of khartal Ghafoor Khan Manganiyar and sarangi superstar Sardar Khan Langa.

The new album received several 5 * reviews and was included in Mojo’s Top Ten Folk Albums of the Year 2018.

A barnstorming performance at Glasgow’s icon Barrowlands Ballroom on 25 January 2019, as part of Celtic Connections, featured two members of Dhun Dhora, and Galician vocal powerhouse Tanxugueiras. The band released their first ever single East West (recorded in Galicia with Tanxugueiras) on the same day.

And in August 2019 the band made their debut at their home city’s festival, an honour that until a few years ago, was reserved solely for the high brow. To celebrate we gave the Edinburgh International Festival its first ever stage invasion! The city’s Lyceum Theatre, accustomed to more genteel fare, didn’t know what had hit it.

Shooglenifty also marked this performance at the most prestigious arts festival in the world, with the release of their second single – a remix of Jog Yer Bones, by legendary DJ and producer Howie B.

In October the band travelled to New Zealand to play the most extensive tour of any Scottish folk act. Providing pure danceable joy to Kokomai, Nelson, Tauranga and Hawkes Bay Festivals the band also played venues up and down the country – from Auckland to Dunedin – stopping along the way at the Mussel Inn, Golden Bay where they found a special ale had been brewed in their honour. “A Whisky Kiss” made its debut in the 1990s as the owner of the bar was a mad Shoogle fan, but was brought out of retirement in 2019. Cheers!

Shooglenifty reached the ripe old age of 30 in 2020. Hopes that they would finally settle down to the quiet life were dashed when they accepted an invitation to start the year in style by performing at midnight for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. The band played gigs in the north of Scotland in February 2020 before all dates for the rest of the year were cancelled, postponed or put on hold due to the Coronvirus pandemic.

Thankfully their new album, Acid Croft Vol 9, was already in the can and the band were able to finish it in time for release on 18 September 2020.

A few crazy promo videos were made during lockdown and the band are working on live video projects to fill the gap until they are able to tour again.