Mark Sheeky Artworks

About This Album

Synaesthesia is an electronic concept album. This was my first serious attempt at an album sized composition, and was influenced in style and form by Jean-Michel Jarre album works such as Rendezvous and Chronologie.

Its origins date back to the mid-nineties, and music that I composed on an Ensoniq ESQ-1 synthesizer and recorded on tape. In 1999 he recorded a version that was almost entirely new, similar in feeling rather than the music itself.

The music was sequenced on Amiga and PC, using a mix of samples and the Yamaha SY-85 synthesizer, the same technology as I used for the contemporaneous soundtrack album, Arcangel. When I developed my music software Noise Station I decided to re-record much of Synaesthesia using that, then in 2015 developed a hybrid version. Finally, in 2020, I re-recorded the album entirely to make a definitive version which is closest in spirit to this original version.

In a twist to the tale, in November 2021, for the first time in over 20 years, I located the original files and refurbished my Yamaha SY-85 synthesizer to re-record all of these tracks in high quality. Those SY-85 masters remain unreleased so far.