Blog

Back in 1996 Paddy Shaw, Kate Ross, Nick Carpenter and Frank Vickers got together regularly to test out Paddy’s arrangements for the Massif Village Orchestra (MVO). Paddy, Frank and Frances Watt were organising the MVO for their first performance in January 1997 at FolkBeat in Norwich at St Andrew’s Hall.

Xim was born in 1998 when Paddy and Frank, saw the potential for a new angle on central French dance music. They were looking for an opportunity to write and perform original material with a fresh perspective on groove and instrumentation. Frank and Paddy asked Nick and Kate if they would be interested in the project, and (needless to say) they said yes. Since then the group has been writing and arranging hoards of Mazurkas, Schottisches, Bourrées, Waltzes etc. and performing at festivals, folk clubs, dances and concerts all over the place. In 2023 we welcomed Tess to Xim!

Life
Where and when
Since birth, XiM has forced people onto dance floors at: Sidmouth International Festival of Folk Arts, Ely Folk Festival, Thoresby Park Fest Noz, Lancaster Clocks Back Festival, Bergues Festival (France), Norwich Arts Centre, Reeling in Ealing, Greenpeace Fair (Suffolk), IVFDF (Cambridge), Worstead Festival, King Street Festival (Norwich), Fair on the Green (Diss, Norfolk), Norwich 01 Festival. Concert performances have made people sit up and listen at: Folk in the Fall (London), Towersey Village Folk Festival, The Royal Festival Hall, Hale End Folk Club, Castle Acre Folk Club.

Tracks from our album ‘989’ have been played on the airwaves by: ‘Late Junction’ (BBC Radio 3), BBC Radio Norfolk and many other radio stations around the world.

The MVO performed in 1997, 1998 and 1999 at FolkBeat, Sidmouth, Towersey and Beverley Folk Festivals. The music and arrangements for these events can be downloaded by clicking below (please excuse any written comments on the files, they had to be scanned in from used copies):

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We’ll be playing on Saturday 28 December 2024 at the Wensum Community Centre, Hotblack Road, Norwich, NR2 4HG.

Ticket’s here

Please remember to bring a bottle, any food/snacks you want and your dancing shoes. Book early, we sold out way ahead last year.

The event is sold out! Please email us if you want to be put on the list for any returned tickets.

It’s Bandcamp Friday today – Friday 6 September 2024. So why not head over to our Bandcamp page and check out our music.

We’re putting our 2000 album ‘989’ on Bandcamp. We don’t have any physical copies left, but you’ll be able to stream and download the tracks or the entire album from Bandcamp. It should be released on Friday 26 July 2024.

If you’d like to follow us on Bandcamp you can by clicking on this link: Bandcamp

We’ll post again when it is available.

Here’s a pdf file of our current PA Spec: