An Dannsa Dub

An Dannsa Dub (The Dub Dance in Gaelic), the brainchild of dub vocalist and producer Tom Spirals and Scottish traditional musician Euan McLaughlin, was formed in 2020.

The six-piece live band fuses the mystical energy and instruments of traditional Scottish music and Gaelic song with the heavy, meditative, driving basslines of digital dub music. The band is a unique mix of experienced traditional folk musicians and Dub Reggae specialists, using acoustic and digital instruments. The result is an explosive heavyweight blend of what the band call ‘Future Dub from Ancient Scotland’.

The first, self-titled EP, supported by Help Musicians, ‘An Dannsa Dub’, was released in December 2021 on 12” Vinyl and digital release and has received support across the BBC from the likes of Don Letts and Tom Robinson on BBC 6Music, David Rodigan on Radio 1xtra, Phoebe I.H. On BBC Introducing, on BBC Scotland and across BBC Alba. The EP has also been supported by well-known artists in the reggae and dub sound system scene, such as Mungo’s Hi Fi (UK), The 420 Sound (Australia) and OBF (France), to name a few.

Summer of 2022 was the first opportunity to tour with the project, and it would be fair to say they made the most of it. A beautiful whirlwind of UK festivals culminated in receiving a last-minute offer to play the opening concert of Boomtown Fair to an expectant crowd of 10,000 revellers. As if that wasn’t enough, the title track from our first EP – “An Dannsa Dub”, has been used as the soundtrack to the OFFICIAL Boomtown after-movie!

The band are currently hard at work writing the next chapter of their tale, composing a full-length album and planning to tour the UK and beyond in 2023, including a turn at Off The Tracks festival.