Bothy Culture a result of his experiences of the early 1990s Glaswegian rave and house scenes and his experimentation with numerous types of world music. It was recorded solely by Bennett within his home studio. Bennett explained "Bothy Culture" celebrates not only his own country's Gaelic culture and music, but also the music of Islam, for which he held a long-lasting fascination due to its vocals, modes and instrumentation being "similar in emotion" to Gaelic music styles, and the music of Scandinavia, which he found to have the same heavy-beat rowdiness and "solitary sweetness" of the ceilidh music he played in his
Bothy Culture in other worldwide mountainous cultures, especially those with bothy-style traditions, like Spain, Austria, Greece, China, Bulgaria and Turkey. He found comparisons between the atmospheres of bothies and urban nightclubs, where he had "spooky" experiences arriving for soundchecks when the clubs were cold and empty, but noted: "Although the music and songs that have been played in them are totally contrasting, it is this same sense of excitement that can transform four bare walls into a chamber of sheer sensual delight." Mairi McFayden of "Bella Caledonia" noted the significance of the bothy as a totemic symbol within the album. She said,