His Unholy Irreverence finally releases his almost mystical debut solo album
Long in danger of becoming an urban myth or worse, more delayed than the building of a children's hospital, Mik Pyro’s solo debut album finally hits the decks and it’s worth the weight in crumpled up beer cans and fag ends.
And it is not what you might be expecting. His old band, the mighty and much missed Republic of Loose, were known for their bawdy, souped-up funk and sleazy lyrics, but on Exit Pyro, cosmic bar stool philosopher Pyro reveals the country and folk elements he soaked up in his childhood.
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In a search for emotional sincerity, he has also ejected the "feral, porcine" and bombastic caricature of Mik Pyro for what he styles "rain-soaked Country `n’ Irish music". However, don’t expect to hear Nathan Carter covering any of these wild, ever so slightly haywire songs. Then again . . .
Exit Pyro is a long and hugely entertaining listen that really shows what a musical polymath Pyro is - from the very funny Paddy rap of Accounting, a song that sees fiddle and trouncing piano socked in the jaw by a funky banjo solo, to the fantastic Flu Crow, a real soul revue of a song, with fractured and atonal blues guitar that sounds like something from Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones.
Suitably enough, Exit Pyro was recorded in the Hellfire Club Studio at the foot of the Dublin mountains, and Mik is surrounded by great players, including drummer Andres Antunes, Darragh William O'Cheallaigh "the Doc Holliday of Irish Jazz," "Churchtown Levon Helm" Angus O'Riordan, composer Sarah lynch and of course his sister, Annie Tierney.
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What comes out the other end (as it were) is a triumph and also very much a family affair. As well as the fallen angel vocals of Annie, Mik is joined by his two Aunts, the twins Bernie and Joan, providing what he calls "delicate brittle and orchid like harmonies."
Their talents are at their best on My Mother & Father, a moving paean to his late parents which has something of the ramshackle spiritual wandering of an Appalachian Astral Weeks.
Automatic Facts is another droll aperçu about modern life. Pyro sings *Your fella sings like a bag of cats, I can relate to that, could you direct me to the jacks. Facts" on a very funny track that sounds like it could have been recorded in the mid-seventies by Randy Newman, Dr John, or Arthur Russell. Or all three jamming together in New Orleans. Entertainingly, it features a false ending before it comes roaring back to life with a barnstorming finale of frazzled guitar, barrelhouse piano and Pyro scatting like a mad thing.
Lyrically, he is on fire. On Chill or Die, he wheezes, "Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin all the way, I’m not au fait with their policies, I just like the name." On Nothing More To Do With The Man - a tumultuous acid trad freak-out featuring MayKay - his flair for blunt Joycean scatology is back. "Oh, you’ve got an ego like a malfunctioning nappy."
Best of all is Lover Is Blind - an eight-minute suite of syncopated sophistication that sounds like Steely Dan giving a bemused social theory lecture.
The bawdy, swaggering and frequently drunk "emperor of bloviation" is gone for now and this really is another side of Mik Pyro. He was always Behan meets Bukowski but something of the soul of Luke Kelly also lurks in these new songs.
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
