WHEN you discover a band who were “quietly pleased” at the prospect of reimagining an album known for breaking barriers and its musical importance, you know they’re probably worth taking seriously.

Bwani Junction, a confident indie outfit from Edinburgh, breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered they would be embarking on a musical journey to pay homage to an album as culturally significant as it was controversial.

A bootleg cassette tape was the catalyst that sparked the revival of a bereft-of-confidence Paul Simon in the early 1980s. Sinking further into a depressed state as his marriage collapsed and his music was disregarded on a commercial stage, he turned to a hostile environment in the heart of South Africa’s politically-charged landscape in the years of apartheid.

After tracking down the artists behind the tape, he flew to Johannesburg to partly record and produce a sound immersed with various musical styles, yet to fully be appreciated by a worldwide audience. Graceland emerged from the sessions and went on to achieve mass critical acclaim upon its 1986 release.

Years passed and the album’s success held up, with numerous bands drawing inspiration from the Simon’s most successful studio record to date.

Bwani Junction are one such band, who, in the summer of 2015, decided they needed a project to keep them occupied.

Appearing at Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall next month, the band – comprising Rory Fairweather (vocals and guitar), Jack Fotheringham (drums and vocals), Dan Muir (lead guitar) and Fergus Robson (bass and vocals) – have released two albums since their formation, with Fully Cocked (2011) and Tongue of Bombie (2014) drawing comparisons to the likes of Vampire Weekend and Two Door Cinema Club, with a third album very much on the way.

They weren’t even born when Graceland was released, but they recognised the record’s excellence from the first playing.

Rory told Press:ON how the idea to cover the album, which helped popularise world music, came to fruition.

He said: “The idea for it all came about when we were recording our last album in 2015. We had been recording, writing and producing the songs for about six months but we hadn’t played any gigs. So we wanted to play a show but we weren’t ready to play the new material. I can’t remember which one of us came up with the idea of doing a full album cover first but we put a poll on Facebook of a number of albums for our fans to vote on to see which one they wanted us to play the most.”

Simon’s Graceland was revealed as the outright winner, besting Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True and Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, to name but two.

Rory and his fellow musicians were relieved at the outcome, as the band’s heart was already firmly set on trying not to emulate, but put their own spin on the classic release.

“We put up three tricky albums – we really didn’t make it easy for ourselves! We all wanted to do Graceland because as a band, it’s our favourite album. We were quietly pleased shall we say? We played it at Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh where Donald Shaw – organiser of Celtic Connections – was in the audience and he loved the show so much he wanted to put it on properly at the festival.”

That became a reality in January 2016. They took their set to Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket as Barney Rachabane, Morris Goldberg and Diane Garisto, all contributors to the creation of Graceland, flew into Glasgow to share the stage with the boys to create a truly memorable experience.

“It was our second time at Celtic, as we had been supporting Salif Keita before that. It was our first time headlining it, though. Obviously, being able to play it alongside some of the original members of Graceland was just a massive honour for us as we got to share the stage with them. It didn’t really kick in for us until we heard Morris Goldberg’s penny whistle solo from You Can Call Me Al for the first time. We all kind of stopped and turned around to look round at him and thought: ‘Oh my God, that’s the guy who did that on the album!’ That’s when it all became real and we all got a bit nervous.”

That same show will now arrive in Dunfermline at the Carnegie Hall next month, a prospect Rory didn’t envisage when the project kicked off.

Taking a large inhale of breath before answering whether the prospect of trying to do the original justice was a daunting one, Rory measures himself and pauses to reflect briefly on the album’s significance to so many music fans.

“The nerve-wracking thing about the experience is that it’s an album everyone loves so much. Everyone feels this sort of ownership over it after having listened to it for 30 years in some cases. I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t someone in the audience muttering: ‘Do not mess this up! This is my favourite album of all time!’ We did say from the start that it wasn’t about emulating or replicating that album note-for-note or making it as perfect and authentic as possible. If you try to do that it’s just never going to be as good. We’ve put our own spin on it. I think the main twist we’ve put on it is by writing the endings to some of the songs, as they fade out.

“There are other parts where it goes into Xhosa and Swahili, and there’s just no way we can do that. Even if it’s phonetically, it’s going to be offensive to somebody if they hear this bunch of guys from Edinburgh singing African, really badly. Maybe that could be a Facebook poll next time? ‘What language do you want us to sing in?’”

Performing a full album which was held in high regard not only by music fans but critics and mass media alike is an experience Rory and the band will never fail to cherish, with an overwhelmingly positive reception wherever they’ve taken it.

“It’s truly been incredible. I feel the biggest takeaway for us is that it’s stretched us as musicians. Learning an album in such depth really changes the way you write your own songs and view your own productions. We were struggling with a new song in the studio and we kept asking ourselves what would Paul Simon do? That thinking has been really helpful.

“We’ve also had such a great response from people who love the album so much. Everyone knows the hits off Graceland so you’re playing to maybe a thousand people who are going off their nut to You Can Call Me Al. It’s an amazing experience. I think we’ve maybe had just two negative comments and those are the ones you remember. We had one woman comment under a video: ‘Puke. Terrible.’ She didn’t waste a word, I’ll give her that.”

While her words were short and sweet, Rory’s own were hard to muster upon hearing the creation for the first time as a young teen raiding his parent’s record collection for hidden treasures.

He said: “I think I was about 15 or 16 when I first heard it. I was looking through their collection and I just liked the cover of it. Simple as that. I didn’t really know who Paul Simon was. I put it on and immediately it captures you with The Boy in the Bubble. I just thought it was so cool. As a band, we started listening to it all the time and had it in the van when touring. It kind of became a song of our time. You put the record on and it takes you back to wherever you heard it first. It reminds us of our first trips to London and tours around Europe.

“We’re looking at it through modern eyes as we weren’t alive when it was released. It’s still so relevant today though, as you hear of so many bands in Edinburgh being inspired by Paul Simon, so it does show it still resonates to this day, 31 years after release. It has aged well.”

Speaking of the creative mindset Simon was in at the time of the production, Rory reflects on what state he must have been in following a dark spell in his life.

“It was quite a controversial thing for him to do. As far as I know, he was kind of down and out. His record label had lost faith in him and vice-versa so he basically decided to say: ‘Screw you guys, I’m off to South Africa!’

“It’s funny that such a positive-sounding album came from such a sad period in his life. I suppose that music is a form of therapy in a way. You throw yourself into self-expression if you’re feeling low. You would have imagined a more morose album to come out of that.”

Tickets for the 7.30pm show at the Carnegie Hall on Saturday, April 15, cost £20 and are available to purchase by calling 01383 602302 or online at: www.onfife.com.