Sylvia Platypus - Last Hurrah

A second outing from this Pennsylvania punk blues gothic folk sextet, Last Hurrah mixes the Platypus' own songs and instrumentals with a couple of traditional tunes. Guitars, vocals, bass, drums, hammered dulcimer, and of course pipes: there's quite a variety here. Piping Today ran a series of articles a while back on how to play pipes with other instruments: the limitations of bagpipe dynamics, the importance of tailoring the genre to the nine or ten notes of the pipe scale, the difference between well-tempered instruments and the positively stroppy sound of the Great Highland Bagpipe. Well forget all that: Sylvia Platypus just go for it, mixing anything with anything, skipping from solo slow airs to steamy lovesongs. And somehow it all works. Charlie Rutan plays highland and uilleann pipes - not at the same time, obviously, although nothing much would surprise me with these guys. His technique is more Braveheart than Boghall & Bathgate, but his fingering is crisp and there's a good compromise between gracenotes and legato. The warbling Irish pipes accompany the poignant song Claudine Two, not dissimilar to Dolly Parton's classic Jolene except that Claudine is corpse. The title track and the heavy rock anthem Dead City are ideally suited to the highland pipes, with screaming solos cutting through bass and drums, and something close to a Chris Armstrong tune as a countermelody. Holler and Goin' Down the Hole are more like swamp blues, raw and rhythmic, no pipes but great guitar and gritty vocals. The album cover is another oddity, a demonic torture scene from a Faustian tale, which complements the themes of the songs on Last Hurrah - death, suicide (death), ghosts (death) and bereavement (death). On the instrumental side, this recording starts and finishes with two striking bagpipe solos, very short slow airs, sounding ancient but both by Rutan. In between there's a dark but danceable hammered dulcimer performance of Tam Lin, swirling and magical, an outstanding contrast to the more contemporary pieces. Plenty of variety, pipes in unusual settings, and a passion for Scottish and Irish elements in the mix: I really enjoy Sylvia Platypus' music, and I think you will too. Alex Monaghan, Piping Today Magazine (UK)