On a less academic note, some people may recognize Synaesthesia (note the alternate spelling for those of you at the other end of the Thames) as one of the many creative tangents of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, the techno-industrial duo most commonly known as Front Line Assembly. Having spawned several side projects under various "band" names, each with their own approach to the duo's musical mission (see my unnecessarily extensive writeup at the Front Line Assembly node), the Syneasthesia project (which yeilded three lp's) found Leeb and Fulber exploring a more tribal-ambient-downbeat audio landscape.

Oddly enough, the person credited with "writing" the actual compositions for Synaesthesia's first 2 releases is R. Deckard (you Philip K. Dick and/or Ridley Scott fans will have fun with this one). This, of course, is a little game the boys played while working on these particular projects. They may very well have had to use this pseudonym for contractual reasons (many of Front Line Assembly's side projects were recorded under smaller, European record labels), but everyone knows it was Leeb and Fulber working the composer's pen (with some input from long-time studio pal Chris Peterson who has now replaced Fulber who, as of late, is working with Fear Factory and persuing solo projects).

Ok. Now back to the topic at hand...

Although the music is quite dreamy and almost psychedelic (in a darker kind of way), there seems to be no real connection between the project name and the neuropsychologocal phenomenon (aside from this writeup). That's ok, it's a good name (and fun to say).

For those who are interested, these are the 3 lp's released by Synaesthesia (on the Cleopatra label):

1. Embody, 2. Desideratum (double CD set), 3. Ephemeral

Ciao!