page_title: Bothy Culture
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Bothy Culture / Composition / Music
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Doudouk arménien fabriqué par Matévosyan Karlen Smpati (MKS). Double anche fabriquée par Félix Vartoumyan.
context_page_description: Bothy Culture is the second studio album by the Scottish Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett, released in January 1998 on the Rykodisc label. After winning critical acclaim for his debut album Martyn Bennet, Bothy Culture builds upon that album's mixing of Scottish Celtic music with farther, international folk music styles and contemporary electronic music. The album celebrates and draws upon the music of Bennett's native Gaeldom as well as the music of Islam and Scandinavia, with Bennett finding and emotionally connecting to the similarities between the geographically dispersed styles. It mixes the styles with contemporary electronic music such as breakbeat and drum and bass.
  Named for the traditional party culture of Highland bothies, which Bennett related to modern club music subcultures, Bothy Culture was released to critical acclaim, with critics praising the effectiveness of the album's unique blend of disparate styles. Bennett formed the band Cuillin, consisting of himself, his wife and two other musicians, to tour in promotion of the album.
context_section_description: First and foremost an album of dance music, Bothy Culture primarily celebrates and draws from the music of Bennett's native Gaeldom as well as Scandinavian music and Islamic music. Dave Sleger of AllMusic felt the album mixes music from Punjabi, Scandinavian, Turkish and Irish cultures with modern club music styles like rave, techno and hip-hop, creating what he calls a "assiduous hybrid." Though Bennett's previous work used electronic dance beats, Bothy Culture developed upon the prominence of these beats considerably, with styles of drum and bass and trippy breakbeats. Billboard believed the album uses Bennett's native folk styles as the touchstone for what is essentially an "ultramodern" world music album, while CMJ New Music Monthly emphasised the album's mixing of Gaelic traditions with "skittering" electronic beats." The Times felt the album was dominated by its Scottish and Islamic music elements.
  Bennett plays all the instruments on the album, with instruments as eclectic as the flute and violin, the Turkish oud and dudek and numerous electronic and programming devices. As with Glen Lyon (2002), Bothy Culture is one of Bennett's more studio-based albums. Permeating throughout is a "flat" synth sound that is often minimised by the bagpipes, violin, unusual vocal snippets, samples and "other electronic curiosities." The large amount of percussive breakbeats, as is common with contemporary dance music, augment Bannett's pipe and fiddle playing throughout, though the electronic beats are mostly unobtrusive, allowing the fiddles and pipes more room to permeate. Other electronic sounds on the album include ambient textures like in that of contemporary electronica, including modem-style squeals and micro-processed winds.
  Described by Bennett as "a party tune with a pile of twaddle over the top," the opening "Tongues of Kali" is an upbeat number flavoured by Punjabi music, and contains funky grooves, bagpipes, sitar and "DJ tinged mayhem." It starts with thick vocal gargling, keyboard work and percussion which journalist Scott Frampton compared to the sound of "someone whacking a caber tosser's thigh," before the appearance of a house hi-hat rhythm and later a "sort of Gaelic scat." Author Gary West compared the song's Eastern mouth music with the Gaelic styles of puirt à beul and canntaireachd. The second track, "Aye?," features the word 'aye' muttered in numerous inflections; Kate Molleson of The Guardian called it "a stroke of deadpan brilliance, spoken word stripped back to a single redolent syllable. Bennett never overdid things." "Sputnik in Glenshiel" is reminiscent of Stéphane Grappelli, and combines Celtic and Middle Eastern violin "rhapsodies."
  The fourth track, "Hallaig," features a sample of Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean reading his poem of the same name shortly before his death in 1996. The originally Gaelic language poem is named for the deserted township on Raasay, MacLean's birthplace, and reflects on the nature of time and the Highland Clearances' historical impact, leaving a desolated landscape. Mairi McFayden of Bella Caledonia felt it was "poetic that many of those lost lifelines from the diaspora have found their way back through music," and called the track "quietly political in its beauty" and the album's "centrepiece." The hypnotic "Ud the Doudouk" mixes melodies and Bennett's playing of the doudouk, a Middle Eastern woodwind instrument, with "techno club and Scottish folk beats". "4 Notes" is an ethnic-style techno track, while "Waltz for Hector" combines Bennett's traditional and modern playing styles, fusing Celtic and Mediterranean music elements atop a drum and bass rhythm, and finishes with Bennett playing the pibroch "Lament for Red Hector" on a lone bagpipe.
caption: Bennett plays a doudouk on "Ud the Doudouk"
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