Shooglenifty are masters of a wild uptempo mix of Scottish folk talent melding heritage and hedonism into one unbreakable whole. They share their thoughts ahead of their very first trip to Lebanon.

Shooglenifty have been touring as a band for over twenty years and although we’ve been to many parts of the world we still talk of all the places that we have yet to play. The subject crops up frequently. We list one city after the next like a game with rules that none of us know, jumping around the continents. We talk of how we might travel by land, air or sea and whether we really will get there at all. Some names are voiced more than others. One of those names is Beirut. When we heard we had been invited to play a festival there we jumped at the chance. Although most of our ideas of Beirut come to us distorted through the lens of the media, we know that the only way to truly begin to appreciate a place is to visit it, so we try to set any preconceptions aside and open our eyes and ears to new experience.

In March and April we spent three weeks staying in a cottage on the Brahan estate near Dingwall in Scotland, working with dance company Plan B, making a show to tour the Highlands. At the end of each day we returned to the cottage, cooked some food and turned on the TV to hear of news in Syria. At that time the festival was still going to include Damascus and we speculated as to whether or not that part of the festival would go ahead. It was strange to watch these events in the quiet of the Scottish countryside, hoping for a peaceful outcome. The dance project we worked on gave us some new tunes and new arrangements of old tunes so we feel we are coming to Beirut rejuvenated.

The other rejuvenating factor is that that we have Luke back from Tasmania. It’s great to have him back and the gigs over the last few days have been a joy. Talk in the van just now is of food! We’re returning to Edinburgh from a gig in Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree and a great gig it was too…

We had a warm up in Glasgow at the weekend, eating in a Lebanese restaurant, and got talking to the waiter, who was Jordanian. He described the food in Beirut in very favourable terms! Three hours drive down to Edinburgh, a couple of hours sleep, then Beirut via Paris. In all our excitement our thoughts go out to the the people of Syria, and we hope one day we will have the chance to bring the band and the festival to Damascus, in better, more peaceful and just times, when people in the street can dance with joy to our music.

Don’t miss the chance to see the originators of “acid-croft” or “hypno-folkadelic ambient trad” Shooglenifty along with DJ DolphinBoy, Scotland’s greatest fusion DJ, at Music Hall, Beirut, 15th May, 2100.

 First published on May 12th, 2011.