8 Tracks: Music that ignites the senses
Can you taste color or hear pictures? You might have synesthesia. This week on 8 Tracks: A few songs that pirouette and paint, plus new music by Charli XCX, Mdou Moctar and TikTok shoegazer Wisp.
8 Tracks is your antidote to the algorithm. Each week, NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich, with the help of his colleagues, makes connections between sounds across time.
Synesthesia, according to an NPR article from 2013, is "a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense produces experiences in a totally different sense." Taste color, hear pictures, etc. It's hard to know exactly how many people have synesthesia, but there are times when my own senses cross to create a unique experience with music.
Two specific examples jump to mind: At a performance where two dancers moved slowly and with small gestures, music; it was a heavy and monotonic drone of strings, as if submerged underwater.
