The singer-songwriter Lorde has revealed that she has experienced synaesthesia since childhood, a sensory phenomenon that allows her to visualise sound as colour.
The release of Melodrama is scheduled for 16 June, but there is already a great deal of anticipation for Lorde's second album. In the meantime, the New Zealand singer-songwriter has given a preview of the new work with the release of two singles – on 2 March, simultaneously with the announcement of the new album, the very first extract Green light came out – and a few live performances of tracks featured on the record.
The name of the track chosen to lead the new album could be a not entirely implicit reference to a neurological condition that the singer has said she has experienced practically her entire life: synaesthesia.
Synaesthesia, besides being known as a rhetorical figure, is also a perceptual sensory phenomenon (real and widely studied since the final decades of the twentieth century) whereby, in certain individuals, a stimulus in a single sensory modality involuntarily triggers a sensation in another modality.
In Lorde's case, the form the singer has experienced since a young age is known as chromesthesia: every time she hears a sound or a note, she sees a colour.
We discussed this condition in relation to the paintings of Melissa McCracken, an American girl from Kansas City who has had synaesthetic experiences since childhood and one day decided to put her favourite songs onto canvas.
Speaking about this "fun" characteristic of hers (as she herself describes it), the singer said in an interview given to the New York Times: "From the moment I start writing, I can visualise the finished song, even if it's still far away and hazy."
To arrive at the final version of a composition, Lorde adjusts the colours and refines the outlines until the song reaches the precise configuration of chords, rhythms, emotions and textures she has in mind.
It's a bit like playing exactly the thing I visualise in my mind.
Lorde revealed in a video on her official YouTube channel how this type of experience greatly inspired her new album: "Melodrama is a very intense colour," and its sounds are heavily influenced by fluorescent colours.
She went on to add: "It's hard to explain this condition to people who have never had synaesthetic experiences (…) For a long time I thought everyone had a colour for each day of the week or for all their friends' names. Then I realised: 'No, I'm just weird'."
This way of composing is truly fascinating, yet in the video the singer adds: "There are definitely moments when I just wish I could listen instead of seeing everything, because there are sounds that for me are almost entirely visual and it's like… 'ah, it's too much!'"