Album Review: Paddy Mulcahy, Improvisations on a CS10

When Limerick composer and synth artist Paddy Mulcahy was offered the use of a vintage Yamaha CS10 – which had been gathering dust for years in someone else’s garage – he could hardly refuse. Thus began Mulcahy’s experimentation with a piece of kit half-a-century old, one that he found himself falling in love with “no matter how many quirks it has, how rusty the screws are or how badly it smells when turned on.”

Improvisations on a CS10 is the result of Mulcahy’s deft experimenting. The eight tracks are an homage both to the instrument and the history of the art form. Relying on a synthesiser with “unstable LFOs and out-of-tune oscillators" carried an obvious risk.

But the rewards are plentiful; the music Mulcahy creates is so deeply textured and absorbing that you find yourself floating away on the artist’s vision. The best track is ‘The LFO That Could’, with its gentle pulse and melody, while there’s a beautiful video-game-soundtrack feel to ‘All Your Opinions’.

Terrific stuff.

9/10