Bodega

From the CD Booklet "Bodega "

In an era when any number of talented young musicians and bands are busy searching for a fresh take on traditional music, it's almost a shock when a band like Bodega seems to spring, fully formed and fabulous, from out of nowhere.

Except of course, they didn't exactly come from nowhere. All of the members of Bodega were perticipants in that ferocious hothouse of youthful talent that calls itself the National Centre of Excellence for Traditional Music, run with tireless energy and skill by Dougie Pincock in Plockton, in the north-west of Scotland.

Bodega's beginnings were quite casual, a temporary line-up to play a couple of gigs; but quickly realising that something a bit special was happening, they puy themselves in for the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards 2006, and won it. This didn't come as any surprise to those who already knew them. Every member of Bodega is highly talented and versatile, and together their music has a kind of fierce energy, imagination, and joie de vivre, that you don't hear very often. They do songs brilliantly. They do tunes suberbly. They sing in Gaelic and English. They're funky, yet respectful of traditions. They have clever arrangements. They improvise. What dont they do ? They don't do dull and predictable.