New Territory

The musical mayhem that is Ensemble Formidable came about when a bunch of artists began networking with one another at local shows around Fremantle in WA. “Inspired by Caravan Palace who plays electro-swing”, guitarist Maisie Glen says, the band's predominant focus is to get everybody up on their feet with an eclectic blend of dance and jazz cabaret. The group share band members with a bunch of other Perth swing and dance bands including the likes of The Brow Horn Orchestra, Double Entendre, Dilip 'N The Davs, Joe Black Trio and many more. They came together to form Ensemble Formidable when the opportunity to play a local folk festival arose. “We've all played music in various bands well enough,” Glen chats away, “One day we decided to get together for Fairbridge Festival – a little folk festival that we decided needed an awesome-crazy dance band, so we just got together for that and went from there. We had a great time performing for it and decided to try and make something of it.”

The eight-piece have been together just shy of two years, however it was not until they realised they would be playing Woodford Festival in Queensland that they began to focus on playing bigger than your casual local bar gig. “Everything's happening so fast. We were just kind of doing our thing, having lots of fun and playing as many gigs as we could, but then we got into Woodford and that happened unexpectedly so we're starting to take it more seriously and trying to lift our game.”

As an eight-piece band, ideas and opinions are constantly flying all over the place. Glen believes they have a working formula to prevent any blow-outs. “We try to keep things democratic, which can be pretty slow at times, but it just means everyone's putting ideas forward and that's always a good thing. We trash a lot of ideas but that's all part of the process – it's everyone's baby so everyone wants to be involved, so when decisions are made, as a group, we think they're the best we can make together.”

The danceniks have only ever played one festival outside of WA before (Eclipse Festival in Queensland), so for Glen and the rest of the gang, the opportunity to play not only one, but many shows across uncharted territory is a concept that has them feeling both incredibly excited and even a little nervous. “I'm excited about heading back to Queensland and then to everywhere else. We're playing with a local band from each city in that respective place when we arrive, so we're just hoping a bunch of people come down to our shows. We just want to have a good time and see some fresh faces. Finishing the tour off in Perth is going to be fantastic as well and we hope to bring back the momentum to our home town. There's a lot of dancing and a lot of weirdness to be had.”