(Updated) Pat Cotillo jr – The mysteries of the Infinite

Update August 14th, 2022: Pat informed us about his new website Sights & Sounds.

You may recognise the name of USA based electronic musician Pat Cotillo from ‘years ago’ when Pat released his first electronic album ‘Astral – Eolith city‘. This album was reviewed in the KLEM magazine by Frits Couwenbergh.

Pat recently informed me that he is releasing a new album. He wrote “Frits reviewed my first release Astral – Eolith City in KLEM decades ago. Though the internet was available (I am not that old) it wasn’t as resourceful as it is today. Either there wasn’t as much interest in electronic music as there is today (special thanks to Stranger Things) or I wasn’t doing something right… such as promotion (and I am sure that is not all).  I did receive positive reviews for the most part from whatever magazines and radio programs I sent my CD to… it just didn’t circulate enough.  It seems things are different now… (again thanking Stranger Things) but also the interest in vintage analog synths has grown… Oberheim released a new synth in 40 years…Arturia and many others making vintage analog synth emulators!!!!!  So I figured maybe I should try again… so here I am!

Pat’s album ‘The mysteries of the Infinite’ was already released in the 90’s but it is now available for download through several services, such as Apple, Deezer and more. You can find it on spotify here.

Below the image you’ll find an extended bio that Pat wrote.

Biography

I was introduced to electronic music by my father at the age of 10 (which was 1980) with Tomita’s The Planets and followed up by Tangerine Dream’s Force Majeure and Stratosfear. The sounds and melodies immediately spoke to me, far beyond what just a guitar and or piano was able to do. But it wasn’t just the melodies, it was the endless variations of sound textures of a synthesizer that hit a nerve.  It created such a feeling that I am unable to describe.  Since then I have always been fascinated with synthesizers, mainly analog synths and it inspired me to create my own material.
 
Naturally I wasn’t able to afford a synthesizer at that age (or several years following) so I had to improvise with what was available… my mother’s little yamaha keyboard, my fathers graphic equalizer, microphone and a dual tape deck. Talk about experimental music… or noise!!!! But it was interesting… simulating tone sweeps with the equalizer, overdubbing with the dual tape deck, sticking the microphone in a metal garbage can as I walked around it playing eerie notes on the portable keyboard.  Stop laughing!  Believe it or not, I still have a few of those tapes that survived the decades!!!  I know… I know… you want to hear some of these recordings.   So sorry, I just can’t…..   they are horrible!!!!

A few years later, learning a great deal by trial and error and actually learning to play instruments with my best friend, we actually created material I think could be called “Electronic Music”!  Advancing beyond my mother’s little keyboard, I had an acoustic guitar, electric guitar, Mattel’s Synsonics Drums and my first synthesizer… the Casio CZ-1 (which I still have and use to this day in my studio).  Though most of the material was electronic music, at times it would branch off into the more progressive rock such as Yes and Pink Floyd with more guitars as the focus instruments. As the years went by, I became more of a guitarist than a keyboardist as I played in a few rock bands.  But I always came back to the synthesizer!
 
Fast forward a few more years, now working in a recording studio in Manhattan New York as an assistant engineer, I advanced further in knowledge of sound design and recording with real hands-on experience. And naturally I took that home with me with my growing home studio… adding a Roland Juno-106 and S-330 sampler, an Oberheim Matrix 6R, a computer running Voyetra’s Sequencer Plus (loved the Voyetra Retro Software article), a Ramsa WR-8112 recording console and mastering to a 2 track DAT machine.  Sequencing was such a major step up from overdubbing on tape, but it was only MIDI until I upgraded to Voyetra’s Digital Orchestrator Plus (my first DAW).  This is when I produced my first release… Astral – Eolith City.

Frits reviewed my first release Astral – Eolith City in KLEM decades ago. Though the internet was available (I am not that old) it wasn’t as resourceful as it is today.  Either there wasn’t as much interest in electronic music as there is today (special thanks to Stranger Things) or I just wasn’t doing something right… such as promotion (and I am sure that is not all).  I did receive positive reviews for the most part from whatever magazines and radio programs I sent my CD to… it just didn’t circulate enough. So I kind of disappeared for a while. You know, life gets in the way… career, family and mortgage… but I was always returning to the synthesizers and creating something. 

It seems things are different now… (again thanking Stranger Things) but also the interest in vintage analog synths has grown massively! Oberheim released a new synth in 40 years, working with the late great Dave Smith (RIP) and the return of Sequential, Arturia, Cherry Audio and many others making virtual vintage analog synth emulators!!!!!  So I figured maybe I should try again… so h
ere I am!