We have a great video premiere today from Monster Ceilidh Band for their new track ‘Anti Gravity’. It features a collage of footage taken from the International Space Station, Europe’s biggest folk and dance festival, and the band’s home in Wallsend. It was produced by The Touch – AKA Joe Truswell, specialist AV artist and the band’s drummer.
Monster Ceilidh Band are celebrating a new line-up with fiddlers from The Shee and the Rachel Hamer Band, Shona Mooney and Grace Smith respectively, having recently joined them in the wake of the departure of Carly Blain, as the band enjoy summer festival dates and begin to work on a new album.
The new line-up also marks a change in direction for the band as a whole. From 2016, Monster Ceilidh Band will be the prime vehicle for ceilidhs, while the instrumental electronica that fans will know from previous albums will be titled under the simple moniker, The Monsters.
The reason for this decision was highlighted by the band’s recent performance at Germany’s Rudolstadt Festival, the biggest folk festival in Europe. A midnight ceilidh performance was shelved when over 2,000 people crammed into the tent and a ceilidh became impossible.
“Our caller told us, ‘you don’t need me’,” Kieran Szifris, the band’s octave mandolin player, said, “and so we decided that the only thing we could do was play our electronica set. We were taken completely by surprise and played an hour and forty minutes to this mad raving, amazing crowd who were jumping in time for the whole gig!”
Monster Ceilidh Band’s accordion player, Amy Thatcher, agreed. “Our line-up change and our electrifying performance at Rudolstadt has really galvanised us into making serious plans for the future. We think that our ceilidh work and our electronica needs to live separately, so promoters know what they’re booking and audiences know what they’re getting. ”
Look out for further information as the band prepare for their next album, for release in 2016.
Forthcoming festival and gig dates:
02 Aug – Darlington Festival, Darlington
08 Aug – Wildness Festival, Oxfordshire
14 Aug – Boomtown Fair, Hampshire
30 Aug – Walesby Forest Festival, Newark
05 Sep – Boiler Shop Steamer, Newcastle upon Tyne
18 Sep – Heeley Institute, Sheffield
http://monsterceilidhband.co.uk/