Paddy Mulcahy is a composer/producer from Limerick City, Ireland. He will be joining us in Dolans on 20th December as he supports Talos Live in Dolans Warehouse.
The composer's music has featured at Cannes Film Festival, London Surf Film Festival, Newport Beach Festival, London Fashion Week & dozens of other events and venues.
Although classically trained in piano from the age of 5, Paddy soon sought out his own styles through his various experiments with electronic music in recent years.
“I grew up in a musical household with 2 music teachers for parents. They are great friends with the Dolans, and that was always a nice thought when growing up as a musician in Limerick”, Paddy says.
Paddy’s father was the late great Brian Mulcahy, a member of the legendary Limerick music outfit The O’Malleys.
“I think having my father playing guitar around the house with a studio in the attic was one of the early memories that spiked my interest. We had a piano that I always played on too. I started taking recorder lessons at age 4”, Paddy remembers.
Paddy’s style is derived from an interest in various genres discovered from a young age.
“I was big into RHCP, Metallica and Guns n Roses and this led me to teaching myself guitar after a few lessons from my father. Later, I discovered the electronic works of Deadman 5 & Calvin Harris which directed me towards digital audio software such as Fruity Loops, Reason and Cubase - around age 13”.
In 2014, Paddy released a 4track EP entitled Memory Season, followed by a piano performance at the launch of Nils Frahm's 'SHEETS EINS' book.
Paddy says that his musical ideas always present themselves in different ways – be an early morning improv piano recording session or a late night melody that pops into his head as he tries to sleep.
“The latter is quite frustrating, but it’s always worth taking out the notebook or voice memo on iPhone to take down quick ideas. My workflow is very much improvised and I play the music as I feel it. Often it feels as if I’m on autopilot!”, he says.
In January of 2015, he played support to Lubomyr Melnyk on his first Irish performance.
That June saw the release of a new solo piano album entitled "Tape Sketches", followed by an Irish summer tour, including a performance at Body & Soul Festival.
Paddy finished off 2015 by starting work on Eriú Dance Co's "LÏNGER", choreographed & written by Breandán De Geallaí.
He spent time working on new album recordings as part of the honours BSc in Music Production at Limerick Institute of Technology. In between these personal projects, the composer continued to provide music for international commercial adverts for companies like Deliveroo, MADE & Belstaff.
Currently Paddy is riding the wave of promoting his first physical release - How To Disappear.
“It has been hectic, but the result has been worth it. I’m delighted with the response so far and all of the support that various people in media, friends & family have shown so far”.
“I think the music scene in Limerick is thriving with such a fantastic variety in the output. From rock to rap, ambient to world music - I think we have it all here at the moment. I want to thanks Dolans for being so supportive and offering such a safe haven for musicians like myself in Limerick city”.
Paddy has been gigging quite a lot recently as he promotes his new album How To Disappear.
“I’ve been doing lots of media and lining up different things for various aspects of press. We’re currently building up a few things for throughout 2020. I will be doing a string of headline concerts around Ireland in Spring/Summer. At some stage I’m going to have to finish off some demos that I’m currently working on for a future release”.
Paddy Mulcahy is supporting Talos at Dolans Warehouse on December 20th. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased here