Cycles & Shadows by Mark Sheeky
2024 Remastered Version
Cycles & Shadows is a culmination of over a year of new musical exploration in musical structures, and continual live piano performances. Influences include artists as diverse as Sparks, Scott Walker, David Lynch, Kate Bush and Beethoven; but all peripheral. Musically, this is a substantial evolution.
The album consists of two distinct halves. Cycles is essentially a piano concerto in six movements for synthetic orchestra. It was born from the Cycles art performance developed for Chester Cathedral in September 2016, and is an examination of information and structures in music, and a comparison with different biological structures and states. A simple theme is explored in different ways that echo the life-cycle of a cell or organism.
Shadows, the second half of the album, consists of songs with unusual structures. Influenced by contemporary freeform poetry, the songs follow the same improvisational style, using words and music to convey meaning and emotion in a depth that is unusual in modern songs.
Shadows is thematically about ageing, childlessness, and the redeeming power of art. Musically, different keys and themes are explored and later revisited and transformed in a joyous conclusion, something that both Shadows and Cycles have in common.
Technically this was the first of Mark's albums to be recorded in 24-bit quality, created using his custom-designed synthesizer and sequencer, Prometheus. Many new recording techniques were used for this album, and part of the challenge in creating Cycles & Shadows was technical, processing large quantities of live recordings for the first time, often pushing to the limits of the technology. The software required additional programming to add new functionality, often functions designed to destroy the technology, to wrestle control from the cold computer and place in back into human hands.
The piano playing was live, and much the composition work involved using the piano recordings as the skeleton, with other instruments carefully layered over these parts like a gossamer collage, always aiming to retain the mood and feeling of the live performance.
Cycles and Shadows is a work about emotion, a Romantic album developed to place humanity above technology, developed to be the antithesis, and antidote, to other music of the early 21st century.
Originally recorded and released in 2017, in 2024 the album was remixed and remastered, including a new version of Cycles III.
Download order includes full lyric booklet.
Tracklist
| 1. | Eternal Cycle | 1:36 |
| 2. | Cycles I: The Great Flow | 4:40 |
| 3. | Cycles II: Old & New | 4:06 |
| 4. | Cycles III: Perpetual Change | 4:11 |
| 5. | Cycles IV: Decay | 3:34 |
| 6. | Cycles V: Nightrest | 3:50 |
| 7. | Cycles VI: Connection | 6:02 |
| 8. | Intrauterine | 3:52 |
| 9. | Cantus in Memoriam Childhood | 6:31 |
| 10. | Corridors of Nothing Menopause | 4:23 |
| 11. | Requiem for a Million Cells | 4:31 |
| 12. | Doorways | 4:06 |
| 13. | The String Quartet at the End of the Universe | 2:37 |
| 14. | Flight of the Phoenix | 6:38 |
Credits
Music, lyrics and production by Mark Sheeky
PRS for Music
Mark Sheeky: Prometheus, P105 Piano, Vocals
Deborah Edgeley as Alice
Location recordings Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme; Grosvenor Shopping Centre, Macclesfield
License
All rights reserved.
Mark Sheeky is an artist from Cheshire. Surrealist art rock/pop; piano and spoken word; and game-influenced electronica. No autotune, no beat detection, no compressed tracks. Made 100% with self-designed and programmed software since 2001.