marksheeky.co.uk
CD Albums

The Spiral Staircase Cover

Notes
The Spiral Staircase is a instrumental concept album. A large and dramatic piece, this differs from my other musical releases because it is essentially one unbroken symphony that changes in mood as the musical fairytale unfolds.

At the edge of a fairytale forest, inside a tall tower of black stone, a spiral staircase climbs to infinity. The music tells of the ascent up the tower as the hero encounters different rooms, caves and creatures. Emerging into brilliant white light at the summit, the journey is recalled and played on a mirrored screen.

The music in The Spiral Staircase is dramatic, and highly rhythmic although there are no percussion instruments. The sound palette consists largely of analogue waves; saw waves, sine waves and filtered white noise. The musical inspiration was mathematical structures, and the shifting chord sequences of baroque classical composers like J.S. Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

Technical details
The Spiral Staircase was composed and originally recorded in 2002 but my equipment at the time was limited and in late 2007 I began work on a completely new recording. As well as improvements in production quality, the remaster has a few musical changes and includes the Sea Monsters section which was composed for the original production but omitted.

http://www.the-borderland.co.uk
"There's also something offbeat about this music, some of the glissandos are so drenched in distortion and ambient 'ice' that the music becomes angular and jagged and on the edge of being dangerous. The bottom line with The Spiral Staircase is that it is simply a tour-de-force showcase of electronica fireworks, but the music is also well worth investigating for its own merits." Full Review...

Ordering Options
Use the links below to order an MP3 version, an uncompressed FLAC version, or a high quality CD version. You can Click here for more ordering information.