Staff Pix 3/27: Synesthesia

“The Downtown Lights” by The Blue Nile

In the rain, a solitary silhouette. A walker in a wide brim hat and a trench coat. Neon spills from the lamplights and billboards onto the wet, reflective concrete. Each step sends up a little splash, twinkling like sapphires. Each puff of his breath, cigarette smoke. “It will be alright, it will be alright,” he mouths to himself, lips slick. He passes pigeons in sodden clumps, clinging to each other. The roaring of a train somewhere in the earth beneath him. He starts skipping.  The click of his heels as he gallops. He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a darkened window. His heart is thrumming, alight with exhilaration. He shouts into the empty street. Thunder booms, and the rain is coming down so hard he can’t hear his own thoughts. With all the force of his being he lets out one more great yawp into the innumerable deserted corridors. It is drowned out in the din. — Christian Jones

“Blue Sky and Yellow Sunflower” by Susumu Yokota

I vividly remember the first time I listened to Symbol by Susumu Yokota—it brought me to tears in my 9th grade painting class, and smudged the acrylic lily on my desk. “Blue Sky and Yellow Sunflower” specifically stuck with me, a result of my closeness with and uncontrollable love for the piano suite “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy, which Yokota heavily samples in his track. This song is life itself. It’s the brilliance of birth, the innocence and fluffiness of playing in the grass as a toddler surrounded by bubbles, the tranquility of riding your bike up roads and down hills as a teenager, and the immutable act of dying—and then, its everything that comes after that. It’s trees growing, forests burning, whales in the ocean, birds in the clouds, sun and thunder and rainbows. Snapshots of everything since oxygen-less microbes began to skate in the sea. Rising and falling. Just like living, the layers of sensations are almost too overwhelming, yet they fall perfectly into place. The twinkling of bicycle bells, soft echoes of synth, endless marimba, and powerful violin—each different fragment of sound in the track becomes a piece of being, twirling together and lulling into your head.  — Julia Schramm

“Sometimes” by My Bloody Valentine

With a huge chunk of my bloody valentine’s work being taken off of streaming I realized I was listening to music way less. This is mostly due to the very important fact that MBV is one of my favorite bands ever. Thankfully a couple months ago the Lost in Translation soundtrack was added to streaming, which gave us City Girl by Kevin Shields on streaming for the first time and the return of Sometimes by my bloody valentine. Sometimes is regarded in my own mind as one of the greatest songs of all time, the epitome of shoegaze and the work of Kevin Shields, and can you really blame me? Shield’s lyrics heading into the second verse sum up the experience of listening to Sometimes, “turn my head into sound,” they paint a clear picture among all the fuzzed out guitars layered on top of each other. An unconventional love ballad lives underneath Sometimes and it warms my heart everytime I listen to it. — Mario Sierra

“Purple” by RETRIEVER

It’s on my locked lips, a permanent imprint, a wet paint that stains. It’s a bloody face. A bruise so violent it’s violet, like a love so ugly it’s beautiful. A swollen heart that’s tattooed, restrained only by anatomy. Purple is more of a feeling than anything else—a pool of lavender so deep you can’t touch the bottom. Purple is the color of my skin, although you could never tell, so I settle on my hair. “Purple” by RETRIEVER is amethyst quartz hiding in plain sight, an ode to a person you can only see through stained glass. Forget rose-colored glasses; purple is a way of sight, of life, of love. It’s longing for somebody already running through your hands, and settling on swimming in their puddle. — Heather Thorn

“Street Lites” by Pulp

Shame feels so good when you can’t bring yourself to care. I’ve accepted the weight I get on my tounge when I listen to this bonus track, taste the perverted memories it reminds me of. Its a feeling thats rushed—moving so fast throughout your body that you can’t tell its speed anymore. Street Lites (spelt the british way) peaks into an affair thats only visible through an apartment window. It shows no mercy on the listeners conscience as its melody as akin to a foggy walk of shame in the dead of night. Something regretful, but not to be given up. Its the feeling of being watched. — Salem Ross

“Is It Cold in the Water” by SOPHIE

This is it. Right here. No turning back. Where light and dark, life and death become interchangeable entities of equal unimportance. Detachment of sensorial experience, disorienting, all-consuming acceptance of the beyond. It’s transitional. A momentary expression of pain and pleasure all caught up in the same urge to find it, whatever it might be. Liquid perfection, pure rebirth. One last look and a step – no, a jump – into the unknown. Close your eyes and float into the blue. — Sophie Parrish