More Than A (Highland) Fling – A Journey To The Most Remote Club Night In The UK

Ravers love to wax lyrical about the journey back from a club. The nocturnal allure of a night bus, the warm afterglow of serotonin, the sun starting to come up as you start to come down. It’s enshrined in lore. Though for baile/baile, the trip there is just as mythical.

Unless you’re one of the 1500 people who live in Ullapool – a miniature fishing village in the Scottish Highlands – getting to the UK’s most remote club night (at least one that’s on RA, anyway) is part of the charm. It’s a 12-hour drive from London, clocking in at 625 miles – even more than The Proclaimers walked. 

This is how I found myself in my pal’s Irn-Bru-orange van, making the four-hour schlep up from Glasgow (after a 7am train from Manchester). It’s the hottest day of the year so far, and the third and final baile/baile of the winter season. I’ve been keeping tabs on the night for a while; it’s got rave reviews from the likes of Mixmag and Time Out and has gained its own clan of adventurous clubbers.

The drive is obscenely scenic. Spongy green hills surround peaceful lochs; towering trees lean into the open road from either side; shaggy-fringed Highland cows enjoy rare rays of sunshine. Ullapool eventually comes into view – it’s equally picturesque; model boats float on shimmering waters, stretching into a mountainous horizon. The closed souvenir shop opposite, with its misted-up windows, seems to have given up – how can it compete with the real thing?

After dropping our bags off at the hostel (which we have all collectively hired out, school-trip style) we saunter to the Arch Inn for a first pint of Tennent’s. I catch up with founders Jemima Fasakin and Sigi Whittle, who spin me the yarn of baile/baile (which means ‘dance’ in Spanish and ‘village’ in Gaelic). It turns out that both of them met while studying architecture and, after learning to DJ, decided to put their heads together for their own party.

“I’d always wanted to do something up here as I’m from Ullapool. People love dance music but the winter schedule is so bare,” Sigi explains. With nearby festivals including RockNess shutting down, the duo wanted to shore up Scottish club culture and fill a gap in the Caledonian calendar. So they spoke to cosy venue The Ceilidh Place and got them on board. “It was always our first port of call. They have been real innovators. It’s quite iconic,” Sigi says.

Since then, people have been going mad for their 100-capacity nights.“There’s always a travelling contingent, but the locals and everyone else mix really well,” Sigi says. This homegrown element is important; the line-ups are designed to represent different regions of North Scotland and baile/baile events in Glasgow and Edinburgh last year even included an interactive Gaelic lesson (with key phrases for the rave) to promote the language. “The untapped talent and quality of DJs we’re seeing is absolutely nuts,” Jemima says, noting that a local 17-year-old selector is waiting in the wings for next year. And with over a third of Scotland’s nightclubs closing in the last four years, parties like baile/baile have never been more vital to give people a space to dance until the wee hours.

It might still be a very wee night, but it’s quickly gaining a bigger reputation. Esteemed names, including legendary queer DJ Miss Cabbage and French bagpipe-pop duo Jazz Lambaux (fresh from supporting Brat producer AG Cook) have made the journey. BBC News Scotland even filmed a feature, catching the duo in a particularly, erm, ecstatic mood. “I didn’t realise it was going to be on telly,” Sigi laughs.

But they’re not keen to make things too serious. “The parties are purely about the fun. It’s always been about having a good time,” Jemima says. It’s clear they’re doing something special, putting their own stamp on Scotland’s dance music scene with a picture-postcard setting. And this summer, they’re taking baile/baile to music and arts festival Kelburn Garden Party, hosting the Saloon stage.

After they shoot off to set up, it’s chips for tea – swimming in salt and vinegar and washed down with a bottle of Buckfast (I’m on holiday, OK). We’ve missed the furry bucket hat memo and somehow haven’t packed our tartan kilts, but we get ready at the hostel with the rest of the travelling contingent and skip down to The Ceilidh Place.

We can hear it from half a mile away. As we enter the underground gig space, UK garage bangers are already shaking the walls, courtesy of Jemima and Sigi. Next up is one half of Geordie duo DADs, pumping out euphoric bass that gets the smoke machines working overtime. Finally, Sub Club residents Stevie Cox and Telford, two of Scotland’s finest, take to the stage, bringing the kind of discerningly selected techno usually reserved for major city main rooms – not a ceilidh venue that’s a stone’s throw from a CalMac ferry terminal.

“It brings together all the locals for a mad night. It’s perfect,” says Joseph, a 24-year-old Ullapudlian. And who do I bump into at the bar but local accordion legend RuMac, the town’s current Britain’s Got Talent hopeful? “It’s a place full of people who aren’t normal but since when has normal been fun,” he says of Ullapool. Pouring out of The Ceilidh Place at 2am, we float back down the broodingly beautiful marina to the hostel.

The next morning, after we collectively sell local cafe The Bothy out of veggie sausages, it’s time for the actual journey back to begin. As we drive down through Scotland, hazy memories of the night’s good craic flickering through my mind, we pass a miniature village – or baile, maybe – called, incredibly romantically, Letters.

The first signs of spring are shooting up around cobblestone walls. Deer lazily graze on butter-yellow gorse. The sun bounces off burns quietly trickling through thickets of firs. It’s beyond bucolic. I might have gone dancing in the Highlands; but it’s going to be far more than just a fling.