WHAT happens when you invite one of traditional music’s least traditional bands, who fuse electronic beats with pipes and Gaelic song, to work with an 80-piece orchestra conducted by a top composer to score a pyrotechnic display at one of the biggest street parties anywhere on the planet? Well, we shall find out on Sunday night but its seems certain that Niteworks at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay will be one of the highlights of this year and next and should see the band increase their already sizeable following.

The Skye four piece – Innes Strachan, Christopher Nicholson, Allan MacDonald and Ruaridh Graham – have been asked to provide the musical accompaniment to this year’s fireworks. And, along with composer Dan Jones, have been busy writing a score which takes some of the band’s tracks and fuses them with Jones’s work into a seamless score played by an 80-piece orchestra.

It’s a world away from the band’s usual way of working but, as anyone who has listened to their stunning debut album NW can attest, the music of Niteworks does have its orchestral elements in the sweeping arrangements – albeit more usually achieved with the use of synthesisers.

Bassist Nicholson spoke to The National to explain how it’s all being put together,

“It’s been a bit mind-blowing to be honest,” Nicholson said. “Allan (MacDonald, Niteworks’ piper) went down and sat in on the orchestra session and we’ve been getting the mixes back. Just to hear stuff we’ve come up with in a bedroom twiddling away on a synthesiser and a keyboard being played by an orchestra has been something I don’t think we ever thought we’d do.”

It has been a process that the band have found exciting and challenging in equal parts.

“We have been given a lot of control over which parts of our music we think would work well and we’ve really been structuring it all around that with Dan,” Nicholson added.

How, though, does one start when making a score for a fireworks display? Were the band given a visual showing what the fireworks would be like or is the display choreographed around the music?

“We had absolutely no visual to work with,” Nicholson said. “They first came to us and were looking for a rough mix of about 10 minutes. So we sent them that which they liked and they’ve gone with that.

“So they had that a few months ago and that core mix hasn’t really changed so essentially as far as we know they are scripting the fireworks to our music.

“Obviously, they were looking for a natural ebb and flow to the mix building towards the end so that’s what we’ve done.”

While the fireworks display around the bells will be a highlight for Niteworks, the band will also be playing live at the street party as they are performing at the Waverley Stage in what Nicholson reckons will be their biggest gig yet.

“Our set actually bridges the bells so while the bells start and the fireworks are going on, we’ll be watching them with everyone else while our mix plays,” Nicholson said. “So it’s a bit of a funny one in that sense.

“I think the Waverley Stage in the past has had about 10,000 folk at it so if that’s the case this year then it will be our biggest gig to date.”

It has been quite a journey for the four school friends from Skye but they may yet be only at the beginning.

After bursting on to the scene in 2011 with their Obair Oidhche EP, the band’s star has been on the rise, culminating in the release in 2016 of NW, an album of such sophistication and confidence that to call it Celtic fusion seems almost unfair.

Although firmly rooted in Gaelic culture and West Highland traditional music, the band’s take on electronica is done so assuredly and with such an obvious love of underground dance music that nothing ever seems forced. The band confidently straddle two genres not only to fuse them but to create a sound all of their own.

So while some tracks build in intensity in the way a techno track would, they can be punctuated with pipe drops that in less capable hands may feel out of place but which Niteworks manage seamlessly. The skirl of MacDonald’s pipes does the work of what a Roland 303 might do in an old school dance track, while guest vocalists add their distinctive voices to the mix.

The band also never falls into the trap of feeling the need to add traditional elements to tracks that stand alone.

“It just kind of comes naturally to us,” Nicholson explained. “Sometimes it’s a four-to-the-floor banger that just kind of comes out of nowhere. Other times it might be a more melancholy Gaelic song that we like the sound of and think ‘we could do that in quite a nice setting’.

“With our core sound running through everything it just all kind of balances itself out.

“It’s very easy to slam two styles of music together and miss the nail on each of them but it kind of works for us.

“Growing up on Skye we were exposed to lots of traditional music and that was a big part of our lives.

“But we also would travel to Glasgow in the mid-2000s when some of the club nights we would go to and the electronic acts we listened to were hitting their prime so we were completely immersed in the two genres. It was never anything we forced. The two went together very well.

“We know in ourselves how to make an electronic track without traditional elements in it so it was never about just slamming a high-hat on top of a pipe track and making a quick buck.

“We’re comfortable in what we do and we don’t ever feel the need to force either genre.”

This year has been a relatively quiet one for a band which has become a mainstay of the festival scene. They have cut down on their gigs while working on material for the follow up to NW which they hope to release in the near future.

After such an accomplished debut has there been any trepidation as they begin to lay the groundwork for the new release?

“It was such a challenge to put NW together that I don’t think now we’re afraid of meeting challenges like that.”

Before that, however, the band have another huge gig this time at the SSE Hydro as support for the Grit Orchestra at Celtic Connections.

“Myself and Innes were at the Pete Tong presents Ibiza Classics at the Hydro the other week and we were just looking at each other thinking ‘are we actually going to be on that stage?’.

“It’s going to be unlike anything we’ve ever done before. We’re really looking forward to that.”

The gig itself is a celebrations of Martyn Bennett’s Bothy Culture album and will include a performance from another Skye native, cyclist Danny MacAskill.

Is it possible to overstate how important Bennett’s legacy has become?

“I don’t think so at all,” Nicholson said, “Growing up we were huge Martyn Bennett fans. The likes of him and Croft No 5 were two that sparked an interest in us and made us realise that there was really cool stuff to be done with trad music.

“I don’t know if our music shares that much style-wise or thematically with Martyn Bennett but the core of what he was doing is something that really did inspire us.

“His whole ethos is one that we hold close to us. His music was filled with nothing but conviction. He truly believed in what he did and that’s an important part of what we do.

“I think anything like this when you can have an orchestra playing Martyn’s tunes in a setting like the Hydro is more than deserved and more than appropriate.”

One suspects that if Niteworks continue on their current trajectory then playing in front of huge crowds at iconic venues like the Hydro is something they are going to have to become used to.

Niteworks play the Waverley Stage at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay on December 31. The Grit Orchestra presents Bothy Culture is at the SSE Hydro on January 27. Form more info see www.edinburghshogmanay.com, www.niteworksband.com and www.celticconnections.com.