The creative force behind Goat Music, Paddy Whetman has produced music in a
wide variety of styles ranging from 'death reggae', in 'pipes from hell' to
'celtic techno' in 'bagpipes make my balls itch'. Although mostly 'dance'
music his approach has always been to avoid limiting his music to one style.
In his musical career, Paddy has played in numerous bands,
including his own creation, “Hamish McDoodle and the kicking Keltic kaos
krewâ€, with Ali Roberts (Ali Agogo) and Steve Green (Mr Modesty). Hamish was
a character he created to front the band, dressed in kilt, horned helmet and
goatskin waistcoat decorated with bones and feathers.
Much of the music features the Eryri bagpipes, Hamish's sidekick.
The pipes were designed and built by Paddy, an experienced engineer.
The reed is made of steel and has an electromagnetic pickup fixed over it so that it can be made to sound like an electric guitar, sometimes dubbed 'Jimi Hendrix on the bagpipes', he plugs the pipes into guitar effects pedals creating powerfully distorted and pitch-shifted sounds featured heavily on 'yehunsaya' and 'pipes from hell'.
This, combined with Paddy's innovative production skills, makes this music
unique, never having been done before.
Much of the music, with the primitive sound of the pipes, the mysterious
chanting and evocative drones has a spiritual 'celtic' feel conjuring up
images of mythical armies marching into battle, strange alien forces, death,
mourning and rebirth. Some of it is perverse and comical, 'bagpipes make my
balls itch' with it's unlikely techno 303 sound and 'plastic' 808 drums.
'Pipes from hell' could be described as being fairly dark and twisted, with
telling lyrics by Ali Roberts and distorted bagpipe sounds.
Some of you may remember some of these tracks from a few years ago, when downloads of Paddy’s music on the now defunct “MP3.com†totalled more than 170,000, proof of the popularity of “Goat Musicâ€â€¦enjoy! Buy the CD if you wanna.
postage options:
