Look over the list of acts that trad band Skipinnish have covered on their new Western Ocean album and there's the likes of bluegrass banjo artist Bela Fleck and Skye-based keyboards player Blair Douglas.

Then there's a more unlikely choice - popsters the Sugababes, and their 2007 chart-topper About You Now.

"That was kind of an accident," chuckles singer Robert Robertson. "I heard the Saw Doctors performing it, and I didn't realise it was a Sugababes cover. I thought 'that's a great Saw Doctors song' and we went with it from there - I knew the Sugababes had sung it, but I just thought their version was a cover too. I'm really glad we did it, it's gone down very well.

"People seem to think it's quite unique for a band known for West Coast music to be covering the Sugababes."

It's not just a choice of covers that are fuelling the Skipinnish journey just now.

They've been on the go since 1999, when accordion player Angus MacPhail and piper Andrew Stevenson met while studying at the RSAMD in Glasgow.

After revamping their line-up a few years ago the group are now on a prolific run, having released Atlantic Roar last year and Western Ocean this year. They're now gearing up for a Piping Live performance at the Art School on Saturday night, where they'll be playing a mixture of their own songs and traditional numbers and ceilidhs.

They've also been able to bask in having a chart hit of their own, after the upbeat, stirring Walking On The Waves went number one in the world music download charts.

It even clocked more overall downloads in a week than tunes by the likes of One Direction and Ellie Goulding, and the group, always up for a laugh, celebrated in jokey fashion.

"When Walking On The Waves overtook One Direction in the charts, we thought we'd have a laugh," says Robert, who's originally from Lochaber but now lives in Partick.

"So we got together to record a verse and chorus of What Makes You Beautiful, except with bagpipes over it, and called it What Makes Your Bagpipes Full. It was just in good spirits, but it went down really well on Youtube."

Their good-natured approach to things has made Skipinnish well known as a band to get a party going, and they found themselves playing recently at a party for Team Scotland after the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.

"We worked in a lot of our own material and the athletes were so enthusiastic because they'd done so well, they were up for a party," says the singer.

"We did a few well-known covers too - we put in Caledonia, that was just the kind of thing they wanted and everyone in the whole place was singing it. That was an amazing experience."

AND Walking On The Waves itself helped kick-start a batch of writing sessions by the band, that saw their own music make up a hefty portion of Western Ocean.

"It was really the Tiree music festival last year that inspired it," recalls Robert.

"We had really nice, sunny weather and getting back to Fort William I just started writing about all the craic there, and the great summer ethos of the Hebrides.

"I called Angus, and said I had this idea for a song, which he then added to.

"We were quite pleased with that, and Angus had a few older songs he'd been working on too, and a few of them then made it onto the album."

Now they're preparing for another party on Saturday at the Art School, as they perform an After Worlds shindig, following on from the championships held on Glasgow Green that day.

"We're really looking forward to it, because it's a great event and it'll be good to be involved with it," says Robert.

"As it's the end of the worlds there should be a big carnival atmosphere."

Robert believes the whole Piping Live bash, which started on Monday and runs through to the weekend, is a great boost for trad Scottish music.

"It's great to have a gathering point for piping enthusiasts from around the world, and it's great to show the vibrancy that exists around piping today, and around traditional music in general."

n Skipinnish, Art School, Saturday, £15, 7.30pm