SCOTTISH dance band Shooglenifty are spreading their 25th anniversary celebrations across the border on The Untied Knot Tour that visits The Crescent, off Blossom Street, York, on December 13.

2015 has been a landmark year for the Edinburgh group. Retaining four of their original members plus their bass player of 12 years' standing, the line-up has been invigorated in the past year by fiery young mandolin player Ewan MacPherson, who contributes four tunes to their seventh studio album, The Untied Knot.

New to the band in 2015 is the "puirt a beul" mouth music of Gaelic vocalist Kaela Rowan, who brings an energising new element to the band’s sound, and the grittiness of the songs further confounds any attempt to categorise them.

Shooglenifty’s roots are in traditional Scottish dance music, but spiced up by the beats and bass line of something altogether more contemporary. This is definitely not a sit-down kind of music, but pinning it down has proved difficult. Is it "dub-diddly", or "hypno-folkadelic-ambient-trad", or maybe "Acid-Croft"? Whatever it may be, it has endured, evolved and entertained for quarter of a century.

The Untied Knot drops an additional pin in the Shoogles’ map of international influences, this time as they head from Scotland to Rajasthan for James Mackintosh and Kaela Rowan’s The High To Jodhpur.

Former band member Luke Plumb contributes two fresh compositions, the psychedelic Arms Of Sleep and The Highway Carpark, while Ewan MacPherson makes his mark with the tongue-in-cheek Highland march Somebody’s Welcome To Somewhere, the dark nautical romp The Devil’s Breath Hornpipe and a speedy pair of reels, Samhla Reel and Scolpaig.

Garry "Banjo" Finlayson contributes The Scorpian (sic), a "fascinating and enigmatic creature", and Fitzroy’s Crossing, the Antipodean closing track by Shooglenifty front man Angus R Grant, is proof positive that no musical journey is beyound this band.

The album cover was designed by John Byrne, who has created sleeves for The Beatles, Gerry Rafferty, Stealers Wheel and Bill Connolly, no less

Shooglenifty will see out the old year, see in the new, with an Edinburgh Hootenanny gig on December 31.

Tickets for their 7.30pm concert in York, promoted by Please Please You and the Black Swan Folk Club, cost £15 in person from The Inkwell in York or Jumbo Records in Leeds or at seetickets.com. The price on the door is £17.50.