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 "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. "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. "Bothy Culture" was released on 13 January 1998 by Rykodisc. A relative commercial success, the album topped the US college radio charts.