The Pool – Rediscovering Patrick Keel’s Hidden Synth-Pop Gems
by Daniel Finn
Guys, I feel genuinely excited about something. Like kid excited. I stumbled upon a video on @MusicallyProper of The Pool – Jamaica Resting. The song jumped out at me instantly, like I had heard it before. You may recognise it too as LCD Soundsystem’s Dance Yourself Clean. His name is Patrick Keel and it turns out that he thought it sounded similar too. Him and his brother did hit LCD Soundsystem up but did not get a great response back. Being firstly a creative he chalked it up as a beautiful mistake and moved on.
Patrick Keel began his musical life as a drummer in several Austin, Texas bands. His project The Pool emerged in the early 1980s, releasing cassettes Pool 1 (1980) and Pool 2 (1981), followed by a self-released vinyl EP. He then produced his full-length album 333 in 1984.
At the time, his music circulated quietly in niche dance clubs and was picked up by adventurous DJs, including Afrika Bambaataa and seemingly James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem. One of his earliest videos was even played on MTV, giving him rare national exposure.
His work was rediscovered through Darren Bergstein, an electronic music collector and archivist. He tracked Patrick down and helped reissue 333, combining the original album with tracks from the early EPs.
333 sounds like a private synth-pop experiment. It’s rough in places, but that’s part of the charm. The mix of drum machines, live percussion, and washed-out synths gives it a strange warmth, somewhere between bedroom new wave and a minimal electro set that never happened.
But I can’t listen to Pool 1 or 2 and this genuinely excites me. It’s not just at my disposal and now I am on the hunt for the cassettes. If anyone knows anyone that has them or can point me in the right direction.
This is why I started Rotate. It’s not a perfect marketplace by any means. It’s not using algorithms to tell you how much you could possibly make on a pressing. I just don’t want this music to disappear. I want it to keep circulating.
Maybe these cassettes will blow my mind, maybe they won’t, but either way you would find them on the site, to be shared and rotated through different collections and different hips.
📺 The Pool - Jamaica Resting \ The Pool "Dance it Down" 1983 \ The Pool Interview with Michael Keel - Jamaica Resting, LCD Soundsystem, and more \ Darren Bergstein discusses reissuing The Pool | Patrick Keel | Musically Proper