Mermaids

‘It was a rainy day at the recycling centre in Leitrim. There, amongst the tangle of discarded kettles and broken down toasters, I first laid eyes on her: a CRB Elettronica Ancona – Model: Diamond 708 E Electric Keyboard. She waited, resolved to her fate of slowly oxidizing in the drizzle before being crumpled into the back of a lorry heading for the landfill. Or maybe, she waited, knowing I would come. I smuggled her into the back of my van and brought her home. For years, she sat untouched in the corner of my studio. Until one day when I finally plugged her in and she came alive with an unpredictable rattle. I took her apart and inside I found three broken purple crayons broken into nine pieces. With the crayons excavated, she sounded perfect. To me anyway
The sounds that come from her when I play always move me like water: swimming in rivers and floating in the murk beneath the surface. When I found the cover picture of the three figures in a stack of old family photos, a confluence of the sounds and the image charged through me and the album Mermaids began to flicker into being.’