Synesthesia (Compulsion Online)

Synesthesia is a low-key release for the Amsterdam based modern psychedelic outfit the Legendary Pink Dots, led by the enigmatic Edward Ka-Spel. The Dots material herein is a companion release to Chemical Playschool volumes 11, 12 and 13, and is perhaps more electronic oriented than the usual Dots fare. There’s little evidence of saxophone or acoustic guitar but there are a number of good tracks including ‘Shining Path’ and ‘The More It Stays The Same’ which captures the Dots musical craftsmanship while providing an insight into the peculiar poetic vision of Ka-Spel, delivered in his customary nasal Syd Barrett-esque tones. Synesthesia also features some more overtly experimental sound pieces. A low-key release but the fact that the Dots continuously make available this type of quality material frankly warms my heart. This isn’t by any means a new release, and I believe it is limited to a couple of thousand copies but we recently received a copy for review so there must be some left somewhere, track it down if you’re interested in the Dots more electronic escapades. The Legendary Pink Dots have a couple of sites you should visit: www.legendarypinkdots.org and www.terminalkaleidescope.com For more information on Synesthesia go to www.spkr.net

(The date of this review is unknown.)