It was 2008 when syndae was born. My passion for electronic music was revived with the encounter with Stefan Erbe and the Electronic Circus people at Spaceworks in Hagen and awakened my desire to support and promote this style of timeless music. Ten years and 450 shows later, syndae is still up and running. And it certainly deserves a celebration. Here comes the anniversary CD featuring unique music from unique artists.
The Sound of Syndae was born from remembering The Seed, an album by John Kerr published in 1992. The aim was to let artists have their take on a common melody, which in the case of the syndae CD is the theme music of the show. Realized as an open call for tracks, several artists submitted their interpretations. And to leave personal feelings out of the tracks selection, a jury of electronic music experts was employed who voted on an anonymized base.
The album offers music in different styles. And yet the tracks merge into a unique experience due to the common theme. Perfectly suited to the goals of the podcast, The Sound of Syndae offers a journey through the diverse world of electronic music.
Available at: erbemusic.com Shop
The Tracks and Artists
Chris Gate - This is Syndae
About: Chris is a German electronic music composer and producer since 1996. He is also part of the Vortex Elements Project. He first started with the collaboration project Noise Construction in 1996 and got a first chance to an official release of two tracks in 1998 on Millennium-Storm Records (Hannover/Germany) on their first techno-trance sampler. To get some new experience, a partnership of Noise Construction with CJ Miller as an upcoming DJ was a nice chance to get a new focus on club tracks. The work of Noise Construction was discontinued at the beginning of 1999 and Chris Gate began focusing on his solo project for some time. In 2003 he founded the collaboration project Vortex Elements together with Sonic Chain. After some years, his musical view changed from club and trance style to more traditional electronic music. During the time, he did some remixes for Snap and Blank & Jones as well as some of his own tracks and for Vortex Elements.
Actually, it's his intention to get some new contacts, for improving the musical artwork and for getting in contact with people who like his work.
Jury-Quotes: Tight-sequenced and peppy, groovy outing with vocoder flashes. Very rhythmic piece, which gets a mystical touch.
Info: Chris Gate on soundcloud and on Youtube. Also check Vortex Elements on soundcloud.
moonbooter - Syndae's Theme (Boot From Moon mix)
About: moonbooter has always been a musician and friend of electronics. Even as a child, he liked using his fingers on the keyboard and cut electronic devices into individual parts with enthusiasm. Especially the radio show Schwingungen influenced him. Besides synth-pop, house, acid and techno he is still accompanied by the sounds of Jarre, Schulze and the like. His first album "Teralogica" was released in 2005 and two years later he founded his record label MellowJet Records. Besides composing concept albums, he also likes to stand on stage. At the same time, his music and also his own demands on its quality continue to develop without losing its lightness. His focus is on rhythmic electronic music, but sometimes it too becomes spherical.
He also does remixes and writes for music magazines. He loves discovering new devices and technical possibilities. And "moonbooter" is more than just a project, it is his life.
Jury-Quotes: Quite minimal track with a hefty sequence along a steady bass/rhythm. A lighter yet melodic tone surfaces later on.
Info: moonbooter's website.
Jim Ottaway - Mystery Without Clues
About: Jim is an international award-winning Australian composer, producer and studio performer of original electronic instrumental music covering many genres including electronic, ambient, new age, space music and music for film and television. Since 2004 Jim has released over 25 independent albums in his homeland, Australia… commencing with his first release First Light, a light relaxing ambient album culminating in his release Yesterday Passing a light melodic electronic/contemporary instrumental album, officially released in May 2018.
Jury-Quotes: Sparkling melodies and a great midtempo groove, like flying over a crystal blue sea.
That Horologe Machinery Divine - Of things impossible? (could Sleep do more?)
About: The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness
Jury-Quotes: Beautifully brooding, snaking bassline with rippling, blurry melodies.
Info: THMD on bandcamp
Stan Dart - Syndae's Nightmare
About: Stan Dart writes songs influenced by a certain mood or the wish to reflect events which happened to him. Sometimes a single picture can contain the idea of a complete song, sometimes a movie (or its music) influences him to write a track.Whatever it is, it´s always a request of his heart to tell a story. He grew up with the „New Age“ music of the 80ies, with soundtracks by James Horner, Joel Goldsmith or Alan Silvestri. He experienced the vivid pop music of that time as well as the great electronic music by Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Kitaro or Tomita. Jan Hammer´s exceptionally music for „Miami Vice“ was the reason, why he started to compose electronic music. Writing a song for him is like telling a story.
Jury-Quotes: Wonderful melody lines open this track, which develops into a rousing track with a pumping beat. Great sturdy bass-groove and steady rhythm turn the outcome almost dancy.
Info: Stan Dart's website,
Rudolf Heimann - Analogue Delight
About: Rudolf played guitar and bass in various bands before he got to know keyboard instruments and integrated them into his home studio. Within a few years he became a "synth nerd", in 1991 his first self-produced album "Strange Delight" was released. Meanwhile 12 albums have been released, which reflect Heimann's preference for melodious, structured compositions. The influence of Rock & Pop is clearly visible. Through his activities as sound engineer and producer he always stayed in contact with handmade music and musicians, so that he could enhance his instrumental productions again and again with interesting and varied arrangements.
The title "Analogue Delight" is of course also a reminiscence of his debut album, but first and foremost it expresses Rudolf's respect for classical analog sound production and recording.
Jury-Quotes: An impulsive track with beautiful rhythm and voice samples. Spacious electronic rock with its distinct prog flavour.
Info: Rudolf Heimann on facebook.
Sonic Chain - The Voice of Syndae
About: Sonic Chain is a German composer influenced by the electronic music of the 70s, he focuses on electronic and ambient music. About 2003 a collaboration with Chris Gate resulted in the project Vortex Elements, which has developed from the original trance style to a very electronic based style without a fixed genre. Today the music is produced in a computer-supported hybrid studio with various electronic and acoustic instruments such as didgeridoos, etc.
Jury-Quotes: A track where beautiful synth choirs combine with fast sequencer frequencies that transforms into a driving title full of atmosphere. A fine and quite versatile piece to play out loud.
Info: Check Vortex Elements on soundcloud and YouTube.
y space - Sunshade
About: The man behind y space is Masashi Yamada. He is a musician, keyboard player, and graphic designer.
Jury-Quotes: Delightful left-turn into warm, trippy electro-lounge. It combines slightly jazzy sounds with wonderfully relaxed grooves and sound effects.
Info: y space on soundcloud
Reskimus - Near Manchester
About: Reskimus from Germany has been making music since 2011, actually mainly for himself to get away from everyday life and get down. He also sees a passion in music and for him an imaginative and emotional world opens up time and again, both when listening and when making music, which gives him strength and a smile. He's very comfortable in it.
Jury-Quotes: Very minimalistic and dark. Partially haunting atmosphere.
Info: Reskimus on YouTube.
Dream Within - Flight Over Chryse Planitia
About:
I am the Dream created by Dreams
I will pop up in your wildest fantasies
If not, I will create them for you
You will never know where I am coming from
I'm the Musical A.I.
Created by You
Find me where you look not
In the Spaces between Time
Where Dreams are made
Jury-Quotes: A fresh, cheeky and unusual piece that captivates with effects, fast rhythms and catchy harmonies. Lots of weird syncopations and effects around a classic Berlin school groove.
Info: (not yet available)
In Vitro - Golden Mars
About: In Vitro is a multifaceted and self-taught person with more than ten years of experiences in sound.
Jury-Quotes: A track with a very unusual and therefore fascinating rhythm, which has a warm and sensitive effect due to its technoid form.
Stefan Erbe - GP
About: Stefan is a musician, teaching author and preventive medialist. He doesn't fit into any of the usual drawers and uses everything that sounds right, musically from ambient to chill, orchestrally, experimentally, drumatically or sequentially. He lectures on composing and the like and sheds light on precautionary strategies for artists.
Jury-Quotes: A piece that mixes pulsating beats with lounge and in some places has a slight pinch of Kraftwerk feeling. Lovely groovy bass-sequence dressed with lighter sequencer lines.
More: Stefan Erbe's website.
The Jury
Well known for his Encyclopedia of Electronic Music, Artemi knows about in the field of progressive electronic music. He found his love to EM at the young age of six through the Latvian group Zodiac and definitely got hooked at 10 when his father got him a cassette of Jarre's The Essential. Since back then he strives for the unsusual in synthetic sounds which, amongst others, resulted in the encyclopedia.
As a longtime fan of electronic music, he runs the dedicated site Sonic Immersion providing a massive amount of reviews on electronic music. He learned about EM in the late 70s with Vangelis and Jarre. Soon he joined the fanclub KLEM and became an active member writing reviews, doing interviews and more for their monthly fanzine. After KLEM ceased to be he co-founded E-dition international EM magazine. After the latter was discontinued after a while he started SonicImmersion.org in October 2007. Next to his website, Bert is also a longtime friend of Ron Boots and supports his Groove Unlimited label on various occasions and events.
Maybe better known as Mike G, he is the founder of the Ambient Music Guide, which started out in 1992 as a book manuscript and turned into a website in 2001. He is a long time radio disc jockey and nowadays podcaster on ambient and downtempo electronic music. Further, he actively brings music to the people in live DJ sessions and by writing for commercial magazines.
One of the most dedicated sources on electronic music (and also progressive rock) in Germany is the MusikZirkus-Magazin run by Stephan. His love to EM was aroused from albums by Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre in the midth of the 70s. Since several years now, he provides excellent journalistic work on capturing nearly any (bigger and smaller) EM event in Germany and its neighbourhood, photographic as well as written.
Since 2010 Sylvain runs his blog Synth & Sequences, where he stores more than thousand reviews of his on electronic music. Before his blog he started out with writing reviews in 2000, also publishing with the French Webzine Guts of Darkness.
Reviews
This very good compilation aimed at fans of an EM closer to the EDM than the Berlin School model, although its structures and moods remain its ramparts.
Synth&Sequences on The Sound of Syndae
Man bekommt hier einen Überblick über das aktuelle Spektrum der elektronischen Musik, von poppig-tanzbaren Nummern über ambiente Klänge bis hin zu experimentellen Interpretationen.
empulsiv on The Sound of Syndae
Feedback
Hi Stefan.
My congratulations to you for the 10th anniversary of the 'Syndae' radio show. Thank you also for airing my music and for promoting electronic music from all around the world.
Also a special thank you for arranging 'The Sound of Syndae' CD. It is a great honour to have my track 'Mystery Without Clues' included on the album. My thanks to you and the judging panel.
Finally, I wish you all the best for the official release of the CD in Hagen, Germany on 8 September 2018. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the event, however I hope everyone has a great time.
Best wishes...
Jim Ottaway, Gold Coast, Australia (18 August 2018)
This is a wonderfully curated CD! Any EM fan would love it! A library must have.
Mary Bartlein, Instrumental Saturdays, WMSE, Milwaukee, USA (5 May 2019)
The album also made it to the WMSE picks of 2019.