Important disclaimer – the image is of a machine currently on sale in the USA for $89,990 USD. I don’t own this or any other. I did however use one for some time in 1985 working on an album.
It’s a paraphonic keyboard. That is, all the notes on the divided oscillators go through the one filter. It has an analogue delay which can be modulated by CV. I can say that mucking around with the delay was the most interesting thing about it.
In 1985 we were up in the UK for a set of live shows. What was supposed to be a few weeks turned into a few months, and I shuffled between various kind people’s couches. One was Jonathan (Price) who was in a band called Nature Lovers. Jonathan introduced me to Hula Hoops (the chips) and brought me some Twisties back from Malta. He did not pay very much for the EMS and there is some wisdom in that.
What you are hearing in this track is me playing the recorder while running tape loops through the delay in the EMS. It’s being sequenced by the MC202. I might have played a note every now and then.