Published by Alessandro Violante on October 7, 2018
Lorenzo Arcari and Andrea Del Boni are Synaptic Memories, born and active in Brescia, the city where, thanks to Claudio Lancinhouse and to Number One, hardcore techno music began to be danced to since 1992. The discotheque built in Corte Franca, near Brescia, has quickly become the temple of this genre coming from Rotterdam (even if some others would say Germany), and they raised themselves in this context. It’s clear that sound influenced their music and after several releases by important labels such as Ophidian and Ruffneck Meta4 and Lenny Dee’ s Industrial Strength, which are considered legends of hardcore, they released their debut album entitled Archetypes of Decay with Phage Tapes, having a different sound from their old stuff, a more reflexive, heavy, martial album.
We already introduced them and their music quite deeply, so let’s them talk!
Welcome on FLUX! Finally we’re able to talk with you. How are you? What can you tell us about Synaptic Memories?
Hi FLUX! Here everything’s ok! We will try to summarize our story. SM was officially born during the winter of 2012, although we’ve known each other for almost fifteen years. We grown up with hardcore techno or gabber music, call it whatever you want to. We followed our passion going to parties throughout Europe for a lot of years. In time we’ve “discovered” new music horizons, which have influenced us and they’re still part of our daily lives.
Initially, SM wanted to propose a dark techno and old school doomcore oriented sound, as you can imagine seeing the name of the labels which have produced our previous releases, such as Spirit Of Progress (Dark Descent sublabel), Noisj, Ggm, Dark Like Hell, ecc.).
Approximately since 2013, we begun to make a heavier and faster kind of music, trying to develop well crafted songs, linked to the industrial attitude. From there, we started to work with Scottish Motormouth label, releasing some EPs, featuring musicians such as Tripped, Dep Affect and Ones1mk.
In the meanwhile, we started to release with cult industrial hardcore labels, such as Industrial Strength, Agnost1k and Meta4 Recordings.
Thanks to the ever growing amount of important releases, we started to be known from a wider audience, and this made possible for us to present our live shows in some of the most important European festivals such as Defqon.1 (the most important “hard” electronic music festival worldwide), Darkside, E-mission, United Hardcore Forces, and so on.
Since half 2016, we have started to move towards more techno, noise and IDM driven sounds, while never losing our industrial concept, releasing music EPs with Drvg Cvulture’s label New York Haunted, MadBackm, Agnost1k and Hard Electronic, an Industrial Strength sublabel.
Feel free to talk in-depth about Archetypes of Decay, a very mature album, which clearly shows the results of your hard work.
Archetypes of Decay is a collection of songs belonging to dark ambient and to noise, surrounded by a techno background, more than being a release made for dancefloors. It could be defined as a more introspective release than our previous ones, eclectic, focused on the idea of the decay of modern music (and not only) world. We’re satisfied with the result, although of course we’ll always try to grow as musicians.
Synaptic Memories have changed their style in time. I remember when I spoke with Lorenzo about your growing interest towards dark techno, then you’ve made a different kind of album, which I really appreciate, released by a label I didn’t know about. How have your music tastes changed through time?
We have a personal interest towards several (not only one) music styles; we could speak for hours about techno, noise, ebm, black metal, neofolk, darkwave, idm, grindcore, sludge and a lot of other styles without never getting bored.
Said that, we can tell you it’s impossible not to be influenced by other music, but this doesn’t mean to lose the distinctive mark and the main idea of Synaptic Memories.
Our main idea is about proposing something “interesting” in industrial music in its wider meaning, not focusing on money, success and the direction where these things bring you.
In time you’ve progressively moved away from hardcore techno. What do you like and dislike about this music and its audience?
As far as our music is concerned, although we were part of that scene, we’ve always been something different, detached from the so called “scene”.
However, in the last years this genre has deeply changed, totally losing the industrial approach some labels and producers had, choosing to follow “the easier way” of money, causing the loss of attitude, starting to sound ordinary. Nevertheless, the majority of our friends belong to this scene.
Let’s talk about collaborations. Your album is quite varied, also thanks to featurings with international musicians having gained a certain experience, thanks to the large number of shows played, such as MOAAN EXIS a Mono-Amine. How did you known them?
Through Internet, although we already knew them as we’ve supported both their projects. Collaborating together has been satisfying, as their music was already on our playlists.
I didn’t know Stazma The Junglechrist. What can you tell us about this musician we actually know nothing about?
Stazma The Junglechrist is the project of Julien Guillot, a French breakcore producer. We’ve been following him since his early releases by the notorious label Peace Off. Stazma proposes a hybrid of rave, jungle, gabber and dub music perfectly mixed together and with a destructive impact, listen to it to believe it!
What is Phage Tapes? How did you known about it?
Phage Tapes is an American noise label, based in Minneapolis. We already knew it a bit. The contact happened in a very simple and clear way. Phage Tapes has shown interest in our music during some live sessions shared on social media, and since then we decided to make the album with them. If you like dirty and aggressive sounds, we suggest you to keep an eye at their catalogue!
Recently our review of your album has been featured on a collaborative fanzine, UNTIL DEATH, made together with the label She Lost Kontrol, active in Berlin. Which role do you think fanzines could have in the “fast” world of Internet?
We’ve always kept an eye on fanzines, they’re a great way to spread music… knowing new things and being updated is always useful and interesting, as well as confronting with what others think!
Close the interview as you like! Thanks for your time!
Thank you for the space you’ve given us and for your interest, hear you soon!