We put Malcolm Crosbie – member of six-piece Scottish Celtic-dance or “hypno-folkadelic ambient trad” band Shooglenifty – to the test to pick out five of the group’s songs for our playlist challenge.
1. “Waiting For Conrad”, written by Iain M Macleod, arranged Shooglenifty from our first studio album Venus in Tweeds.
This was one of the first things we recorded for our debut album. I can remember going for a pint with the lads after a mixing session with this still in my head and thinking that we really were making a new and exciting sound. I certainly felt I hadn’t heard anything quite like it before and it seemed nor had the public or the music world in general and that newness resulted in BBC Scotland naming it as their folk album of the year.
2. “A Whisky Kiss”, written by Iain M Macleod, arranged Shooglenifty from our second studio album A Whisky Kiss.
When this first started to develop I thought, ‘God no, not two banjos in the one tune!’ But of course it works remarkably well with the well-worked riffery at the start and then when the bass thumps in it turns into a great dance tune. It became our final set ending number and it evolving into an ever wilder beast over the next few years until it finally ate itself up. We revived it recently when the two past members Iain and Conrad joined the current members on stage at the Trad Awards Ceremony in Inverness to mark our 25th anniversary year.
3. “Delighted”, written by Angus R Grant, arranged Shooglenifty from our third studio album Solar Shears.
We continued on with the sonic experimentation with this album even going as far as using a car speaker to record mandolin (a loud speaker is a transducer like a microphone, and in fact, can be used as one – only in reverse – turning sound into electrical impulses instead of electrical impulses into sound).
Angus wrote this whilst babysitting for a Spanish flamenco dancer friend. He always says it was the night Jack Lemon died but that wasn’t why he was delighted. This was another that became a great stalwart of our live sets and, as Angus also says, is music from a “teuchter porn movie”.
4. “A Fistful of Euro/The New Rat no.6”, written by James Mackintosh and Luke Plumb, arranged Shooglenifty from our fourth studio album The Arms Dealer’s Daughter.
This was our first album with the new line up after Conrad and Iain left the band with Quee MacArthur on bass and Luke Plumb from Tasmania on mandolin. As it happens, when Iain left, we had a tour of Australia lined up and Conrad had just married a lass from Tasmania. So while he was there on his honeymoon and visiting her parents, he, knowing we would be a man down, had a look around and found Luke playing in a session. He asked him if he fancied playing a gig with Shooglenifty. Luke met us at Hobart airport, played the gig that night and was with us for the next 14 years. The sound of the band became more international, it might be said, with us having travelled to many exotic places around the world being influenced by myriad sights and sounds. This track reflects that somewhat.
5. “Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station”, written by Malcolm Crosbie, arranged Shooglenifty from our sixth studio album, Murmichan.
I actually decided to write a tune in 5/4 time but when I played it to Luke he said, “I don’t think that’s 5/4 though, I think it’s in 7/8.” Somehow, while I was composing it it morphed into a different rhythm. He then said, “This is what it’s like in 5/4,” (he’s clever that way). It sounded pretty good both ways, so we decided that we’d do it both ways with a 4/4 section in the middle that we made up from a riff that Luke had up his sleeve.
“Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station” is an actual place near Banff in the Canadian Rockies, you can go up Sulphur Mountain in a cable car and visit the little hut where they measured cosmic rays. It just seemed like the perfect name for our new psychedelic progressive-folk tune.
Luke Plumb has since left the band to get married have a brand new baby (only a few weeks old) and settle back in Melbourne. We’re working on the final stages of our latest LP recording which will be entitled The Untied Knot with our new mandolin player Ewan Macpherson.
Listen to Shooglenifty’s picks:
Shooglelifty tours Australia this summer. Grab your tickets here:
| Date | Venue | City | |
| Sat 27 Dec 2014 —Fri 02 Jan 2015 | Woodford Folk Festival 2014 | Woodford, QLD, Australia | Tickets |
| Fri 02 Jan 2015 | Governor Hindmarsh Hotel | Adelaide, SA, Australia | Tickets |
| Fri 09 Jan 2015 | Caravan Music Club | Oakleigh, VIC, Australia | Tickets |
| Sat 10 Jan 2015 | Camelot Lounge | Sydney, NSW, Australia | Tickets |
