A CHARISMATIC sight on stage with his dreadlocked hair flying in all directions and his virtuoso playing of the bagpipes and fiddle amplified by a pounding sound system, Martyn Bennett was one of the most exciting and radical figures in British folk music.

On a series of groundbreaking records, he combined traditional Scottish tunes and Gaelic melodies with an avalanche of techno beats and samples to create a unique and dramatic musical hybrid that demolished boundaries of time, culture and genre. Then, when cancer left him unable to play an instrument, he recorded some of the most powerful music of his career with two albums that set the voices of various Scottish singers, including his mother, in a thrilling contemporary electronic soundscape.

He was born in Newfoundland in a Gaelic-speaking community and grew up immersed in traditional culture. His parents separated when he was six, and he moved to Speyside, Scotland, with his mother, the singer Margaret Bennett. By the age of 10 he was playing the bagpipes and within two years was winning junior piping contests and appearing at folk festivals. In 1986 he moved with his mother to Edinburgh and studied at Edinburgh City School of Music before gaining admission in 1990 to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama (RSAMD) to study violin and piano.

Initially he entertained hopes of becoming a professional classical violinist but, unbeknown to his teachers, he maintained his interest in traditional folk music by playing the pipes in pub sessions, and after graduating in 1994, he set about what he called “relearning” his violin technique, claiming that classical and folk styles on the instrument were incompatible.

Around the same time he bought an electronic keyboard and digital sequencer and began experimenting with techno beats to create an extraordinary marriage of traditional Scottish folk and contemporary dance music. His self-titled debut album appeared on the independent Eclectic Records label in 1996. Rave reviews led to a deal with the larger international label Rykodisc, and his second album Bothy Culture appeared in 1998. The album took Scottish traditional music to a wider rock and dance audience more used to Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers than the White Heather Club.

To play his new music live, he formed the band Cuillin, the line-up of which included his wife Kirsten. Touring Europe and North America their crossover sound found them playing not only folk festivals but dance clubs, including a famous appearance at Paris’s trendy nightspot the Buddha Bar, where Sean Connery and Ewan McGregor leapt on stage to dance with the band.

Another famous gig followed at Edinburgh Castle on December 31, 1999, when Bennett and his band were seen by millions as part of BBC TV’s Millennium Night broadcast.

Moving to the Isle of Mull, he recorded his third album, Hardland, which appeared in 2000. Then in the that autumn of that year Hodgkin’s lymphoma was diagnosed, and Bennett was forced to cancel all engagements.

Although he could no longer play the pipes or violin, while he was ill he continued to make music electronically, recording the album Glen Lyon, a song cycle which featured the voice of his mother singing in Gaelic. He released a fifth album, Grit, in 2003 on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. The record sampled the voices of traditional Scottish singers of the past and is regarded by many as his most profound musical statement. He is survived by his wife Kirsten.

Martyn Bennett, piper and violinist, was born on February 17, 1971. He died on January 30, 2005, aged 33.