Synaesthesia in the Song
Difficult to define, yet not so if you see what you hear. The Lol Cooper Band evolved from Cavalier Recording Studios in Stockport over many years, which saw a number of musicians passing through the studio, who heard sounds in colour, we have one in the current LCB line up. This is where it
becomes difficult to define. The experiential event is clear, or coloured clear, the definition becomes clouded, awaiting the sound of the rainbow after a sense of refracted rain. An effects pedal such as a flanger, or phaser, may be seen as shades of orange or of sky blue. The Kaleidoscope colour tones of the first LCB album, Poetry and Fairytales, and the contrasting light and shade of the second
complimentary album, Soul to Sun, can be visualized when listening back to the mix after
recording, and the finished blend of eye sensation on the ear, enjoyed when again playing it for pleasure as the finished article.
A well known example of this condition was in the early 20th century artist Pamela Coleman Smith, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who worked with magician Arthur Edward Waite to produce the Smith Rider Waite Tarot deck, some of these cards are described in part 1 of T S Elliot’s 1922 classic modernist poem The Wasteland. Miss Smith was described by Mr Waite as unusually psychic. Later the two of them went their separate ways, both moving away from dichotomy in magic and mysticism, the two of them predominately embracing the way of the mystic. Evelyn Underhill by the way, described mysticism and magic as matching; with one; the preference may be to give, and the other; it maybe to take. Part one; Soul to Sun poem A Scapeshifter explains this in its poetic metaphore.