IT would be easy to imagine that, unlike in politics, 25 years in traditional music is not a long time. After all, the clue is in the name. And it’s true that that may have been the case normally.

However, the past 25 years have seen such a sea-change in Scottish traditional music that it seems like a lifetime.

The Peatbog Faeries have been in the vanguard of that change. For a quarter of a century they have been pushing the boundaries of folk music, blending pipes, fiddle and whistles with dance beats, samples and even brass sections. To celebrate their longevity they have just released Live@25, only their second attempt at capturing the energy of their live shows on a recording.

Piper Peter Morrison, one of two founding members still with the band along with Innes Hutton, explained just how different the traditional music scene in Scotland was back when they first started playing in the early 1990s.

“We had no idea when we first started that it was going to go in the direction it has done,” Morrison said. “Not just for ourselves but for other groups too.”

“Being up in Skye we were slightly detached from what was going on elsewhere. We were unaware of Martyn Bennett and the likes of that until we started on the festival circuit.

“From 1991 to 1993 we were basically doing ceilidhs and dances in Skye but when we started playing about with beats and wee bits of electronica we found that the crowd were really getting off on that,” said Morrison.

“In 1994 we did a wee tape called The Great Ceilidh Swindle, 500 copies, which sold locally and basically that became our demo for Green Trax records.”

It was around this time that artists like Bennett were joined by Shooglenifty and to Morrison it was an eye-opener as the Peatbog Faeries – cocooned on Skye – suddenly realised there was a scene building around the type of music they were playing.

“I first heard Shooglenifty’s album – Venus in Tweeds –around the same time and I’d never heard anything like it.

“We often get asked if we were inspired by them but to be honest we were doing our thing before we heard of them. We were certainly inspired after and by Martyn Bennett, too.

“Basically around that time – 1994-1995 – folk music in Scotland changed,” Morrison added.

The Peatbogs would soon find themselves at the forefront of the emerging scene as, after signing with Green Trax, Shooglenifty’s record label, they began to be booked for more and more events, eventually becoming one of the mainstays of the new wave of Scottish trad.

How does it feel to have influenced one, if not two or more, generations of musicians?

“It’s strange really. Although I listen to a lot of them. I’ve been listening to Imar a lot of late and I think they’re fabulous; Rura as well and Elephant Sessions. There’s lots of them now and it seems almost unfair to pick out just one as there’s such great depth.

“What I love about it is the fact that all these young musicians are genuinely excellent musicians when they’re not doing their stage stuff,” Morrison added.

“I, like Ross Couper (the Peatbogs’ fiddler from Shetland), come from a very traditional background. And if you play with these young guys at a session you see they’re just beautiful players.”

However, for the young Morrison growing up, sessions were few and far between.

“There were no sessions here in Skye when I was younger. The reason I started was at primary school and the only musical option we had was pipes. I remember our headmistress’s husband used to pipe in Santa at Christmas and I was just mesmerised by the pipes. So I think almost every kid at our school started learning pipes.

“I used to play pipes at ceilidhs, usually house ceilidhs rather than big ceilidhs, playing with accordion players and fiddlers and that was really where it began for me. There wasn’t really any session scene.”

The introduction of the border pipes was central to the young Morrison’s education as it meant that when sessions did start up, pipers could play along without fear of drowning out the rest of the players.

“The session scene helped totally transform traditional music and part of that was the fact that pipers were suddenly able to join in. It’s the dominant instrument here in Skye and now there’s always a piper at a session up here.”

If pipes are central to the Peatbog Faeries’ sound then so too is the fiddle. The band have seen a few line-up changes over the years but, as Morrison explained, finding a new fiddler has never been a difficult task. The band have yet to need a new piper.

“It’s always kind of fallen into place. When Adam Sutherland started about 15 years ago he’d just left Croft No 5 and we knew him so we didn’t really have many choices with not that many people back then playing our kind of music so he was an obvious choice.

“Then when we had Adam, he would latterly have other commitments so he would get Peter Tickell to stand in for him so when Adam decided he wanted to concentrate on his own music, Peter joined.

“Similarly when Peter got pinched by Sting for his band Ross, who had been Peter’s stand-in, joined. So it’s been quite straightforward.

“Finding a piper wouldn’t be difficult either these days but I’ve got a few months left in me yet,” Morrison added.

After 25 years, much of it spent on the road, is there still an excitement about performing?

“Yeah, we still enjoy it. We find the travelling a bit hard going sometimes but the gigs are always great fun. We still really enjoy it, so hopefully there’s more music to come.”

Live@25 includes something that hasn’t really been heard on a Peatbog Faeries track so far, and that is vocals. And female vocals at that. Does this herald a new direction?

“There’s a track called Humours of Ardnamurchan which is a new one about the craic we had recording the last album in Kilchoan, and (keyboard player) Graeme Stafford’s wife, Katy, recorded a vocal which we use more as a sample as you would in club music. And she has a marvellous voice. But it’s just a wee snippet rather than a new direction.”

So what are the plans for the next 25 years?

“We’re hoping to do a new studio album so we’ll be getting together in February to start that process,” Morrison said.

“And we’ve got a Celtic Connections show and we’ll also be at the Cambridge Folk Festival in the summer as well as various other festivals. So there’s no letting up.”

Twenty-five years on the scene certainly hasn’t dampened the Peatbogs’ enthusiasm or their pioneering spirit and for that Scotland should be truly thankful.