Album Review of
Lullabies

Written by Robert Silverstein
November 5, 2020 - 4:05pm EST
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One of America’s most underrated keyboardists and composers, Georgia-based Pat Strawser did a fantastic job on the 2018 Bill Hart album, Live At Red Clay Theatre as well as doing a bang-up job, as a band member, on the just-released French TV double CD set of avant-garde rock fusion instrumentals, Stories Without Fingerprints. Pat released a very cool series of digital only albums including Fifty-Two and Synth back in 2018. Gearing up again in 2020, Pat recently released first-ever CD versions of those two albums as well as a recent album, from 2019 entitled Lullabies, an album of ten mellow instrumentals most likely inspired by the birth of his still quite young children. Like a modern-day Mozart, the music on Lullabies is electronic New Age yet it's highly composed and could easily fall into the 21st century neoclassical music category. Also released for the first time on CD, Fifty-Two is more in the instrumental fusion category, although still very relaxed and thoughfully composed. The critically-acclaimed Fifty-Two is very atmospheric nonetheless, and is kind of reminiscent of Patrick O’Hearn’s easy-on-the-ears progressive, keyboard-inspired soundtrack instrumentals. Patrick’s friend Bill Hart does a bang-up job on Fifty-Two, which features a dozen instrumentals that serves as a fine introduction to Patrick’s music. Also issued on CD for the first time is the 15-track Synth. Pat claims his intention on Synth was to create a soundscape that was built around the character of vintage 1970s and ‘80s synthsizers. The most electronica-based album of the three, Synth is also the most progressive sounding, filled with pulsating and undulating whirls and washes of synthesizers that could appeal to fans of the more pastoral elements of Wendy Carlos and Larry Fast’s Synergy ensemble. The inside of the Synth CD packaging lists all of the synths and assorted keyboards Pat performs on the album. All three of these recent CD releases, as well as the 2020 French TV double CD set, further establishes Patrick Strawer as being among the finest synth keyboard-based artists to watch in the 2020’s.