A HIGHLAND folk band fast climbing up the popularity ladder are one of the headline acts at the Innerleithen Music Festival later this month.

Skipinnish are on a roll with their latest single The Island charging up the charts, and even recently overtaking Taylor Swift in the UK iTunes download chart - plus George Ezra and Ed Sheeran!

After the success of its two predecessors Skipinnish now have an incredible hat-trick of appearances in the official UK download charts within a year.

The band have just played the sold out Tiree Music Festival and are scheduled for the date in Innerleithen on August 22, giving Scottish fans the only opportunity to watch them outside the Highlands this summer.

For the past 13 years Innerleithen has held what is now a renowned traditional music festival and another fantastic line up is promised for this year’s renewal.

From August 21-23 the festival combines a superb series of evening concerts - with some of the best-known names on the Scottish music circuit, supported by many breaking acts - plus music all weekend, showcasing local talent.

Skipinnish field a six-piece line-up based on powerful vocals and foot-stomping bagpipe tunes.

Their new-found chart topping success would have been hard to believe over 15 years ago when the band was formed by accordionist Angus MacPhail from Tiree and piper Andrew Stevenson from Lochaber over some tunes in the then Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow - now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Their talents were recognised at last year’s Scots Trad Music Awards when they were voted Live Act of the Year. The Island is a sure summer festival hit, written by MacPhail and lead vocalist Robert Robertson; it is both powerfully nostalgic and irresistibly feel-good. “Will you dance and return to the island of the young” is a profoundly emotional take on the Gaelic idea of going to Tìr nan “g (the land of the young), while it also reflects the vibrant atmosphere of the western highlands and islands during summer festival season.

The band’s increased popularity in the past year has been due in no small measure to their pioneering approach to social media.

This will be their third single to be released with an accompanying music video online. The video intersperses stunning shots from the coastline of Argyll with footage of a bouncing Skipinnish gig.

While the song will make listeners want to get up and dance, the video’s storyline of love and loss resolved by impassioned, eternal reunion in the island of the young will pull upon the strings of even the hardest heart.

Support band for their Innerleithen concert are another young group, the delightful Friel Sisters, steeped in the Glasgow-Irish tradition.

Tickets for the concert are on sale at the festival website www.innerleithenmusicfestival.org, at Scotlight in Innerleithen High Street, or in person or by phone from the Eastgate Theatre in Peebles, 01721 725777