“It was wonderful to feature Shooglenifty in the Auckland Arts Festival. The energetic and dynamic musical offering that the band generously gave to our Auckland audiences was full of joy and delight”
– Carla van Zon, Auckland Arts Festival
Lighting up the stage with joy and verve has always been Shooglenifty’s spirit, but with new fiddler in the shape of pint-sized fireball Eilidh Shaw they’ve upped the ante. Fresh from some high profile appearances including a show at the Edinburgh International Festival with recent recording collaborators: Dhun Dhora from Rajasthan and Tanxugueiras from Galicia, the band are on sparkling form.
Their 2018 album, Written in Water, with Dhun Dhora, attracted five-star reviews and a coveted slot in music bible Mojo’s Top Ten Folk Albums of the Year.
In 2019 Shooglenifty (with Tanxugueiras) released their timely humanitarian anthem (and first ever digital single!) ‘East West‘, and are currently working hard on their ninth studio album slated for release in their 30th anniversary year: 2020.
The Shoogles are delighted to be heading back to New Zealand after an absence of three years. They perform at Auckland’s Tuning Fork as part of their 10-date nationwide tour this October. Expect some electric new tunes and a full-on set of old favourites. There will be dancing.
“Shooglenifty, self-styled as “Acid Croft”, have the musical wanderlust as well as the rocking electric bottom end to summon their audience to a world ceilidh. ****”
– Fiona Shepherd, The Scotsman
Shooglenifty
New Zealand Tour 2019
17 Oct – San Fran, Wellington
18 Oct – Kokomai Festival, Masterton
19 Oct – Arts Festival, Nelson
20 Oct – Mussel Inn, Takaka
22 Oct – Cassels Blue Smoke, Christchurch
23 Oct – 50 Dundas, Dunedin
24 Oct – Tuning Fork, Auckland
25 Oct – Arts Festival, Tauranga
26 Oct – Arts Festival, Hawkes Bay
27 Oct – Arts Festival, Hamilton
Tickets at shooglenifty.com
On sale Monday August 26th, 12 pm.
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 bass lines of a mixed bag of more contemporary influences. As happy playing a small highland village hall as they are on an 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 nearly three decades.
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 star ‘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 and embarking 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 andLaura Wilkie.
In December 2017, A Night For Angus won Event of the Year at the Scottish Traditional Music Awards (Na Trads). The documentary is currently being edited and we expect it to premiere in 2020.
“With Written in Water, Shooglenifty & Dhun Dhora have realised a beautiful dream and produced an album of exciting, intoxicating, exceptional music”
– Neil McFadyen, Folk Radio UK
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 new album received several 5 star reviews and was included in Mojo’s Top Ten Folk Albums of the Year 2018. Read more about Written in Water.
Shooglenifty featuring Tanxugueiras
‘East West’
Shooglenifty
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