The Rise Of The Synths is not an album but it has everything to do with music... synthwave to be exact. This documentary is directed by Iván Castell, a Spanish film maker with a passion for the genre. This film was funded by a crowd funder campaign in 2016, it took 2 years to complete hitting the film festivals on and around the beginning of Covid, so 2019/2020. They visited over 8 countries to interview the bands and artists involved. Not only that but it has a really cool 80s inspired wraparound story that brings it all together rather than it being just a series of interviews and to top it all off it is narrated by John Carpenter, himself a legend in synthwave.
The Rise Of The Synths is an absolute nostalgia trip from start to finish and you don't have to have a great knowledge of the genre to appreciate this. I don't and I completely adored this documentary. I guess it is more to do with my age. Being born around the same time as the more mature synthwave artists featured and my huge love of John Carpenters movies and other 80s classic, horror movies and soundtracks in general. Synthesizer music is not new, it has been around for decades and The Rise Of The Synths acknowledges this fact by going right back to bands and artists like Tangerine Dream, Tubular Bells, Goblin, Vangelis & John-Michel Jarre as well as film makers and composers like Georgio Moroder and John Carpenter even mentioning synthpop/new wave acts like Kraftwerk but it concentrates more on how the synthwave movement officially came about that bit later. The synthwave sub-culture kind of really kicked off in the mid-2000's when more and more artists started creating music in their bedrooms and putting it up on music platforms like MySpace. Taking inspiration from their favourite childhood movies, usually from the 80s they create these amazing, dramatic, haunting big sounding movie soundtrack style pieces. French duo Valerie Collective and solo artist Carpenter Brut, British artists 80s Stallone and Gunship plus US musicians Dance With The Dead and Celldweller all animatedly talk about their most treasured memories of 80s and early 90s cinema from Tron and Blade Runner to Bad Boys and Terminator 2. They also talk about the origin of synthwave and how it grew in popularity off the back of movies like Drive(2011) which was a huge boost for the scene and featured synthwave acts College and Electric Youth. It also acknowledges recent Netflix series Stranger Things in bringing back the 80s nostalgia and synthwave soundtrack to new audiences just at the right time.
The wraparound feature in between the interviews features a mysterious figure (similar to Ryan Gosling in Drive) known as Synthrider played by Ruben Martinez. Synthrider, his collection of 80s movie tattoos and his DeLorean travel through time, this is how they make their way through the documentaries timeline. Starting in the present day they talk about the genres inspirations and introduce the bands and artists. The synthwave scene remains largely underground with an emphasis on the music and not an image. Many of the artists do not show their faces and remain hidden in shadow or have their faces obscured by masks or hoods yet in the same breath others are more than happy to appear on screen. Either way it shows the synthwave scene as a truly individual and personal thing. Many acts in the scene are faceless, unsigned and are out there doing it their own way. Anyway, Synthrider and his DeLorean take us back in time decade by decade from 1999 to 1979 and then back to the future!!! Each Synthrider scene is packed full of 80s nostalgia from cassette tapes and Sony Walkman to pay phones, vinyl records and VHS!! Towards the end Synthrider goes from live action to animation which still keeps it 80s.
The most interesting thing I learned from The Rise Of The Synths were the varied influences the artists have. Many were musicians in punk, rock and metal bands and site bands like Slayer and Cannibal Corpse as influences but found that having to deal with other band members became frustrating so decided to just do it all themselves. Of course, many also mention Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails as a big push towards synth as their ability to add "crazy synth shit" into their sound made others want to do the same.
Watching and listening to John Carpenter talking into an old cassette recorder reminiscing about art and his beginnings as a composer and film maker is always great to hear and he has a wonderful comfortable nature about him that really puts you at ease.
It is kind of funny hearing from some of the artists who were born after the 80s but so great to hear their enthusiasm for the decade and that they share the love of the movies, artists and composers of that era.
Other featured artists involved are Ogre (who also bagged the soundtrack gig for this documentary), John Bergin, Power Glove, Ten, Nightcrawler, Perturbator, The Midnight, Nina, Robert Parker, Waveshaper and many more. I throughly enjoyed The Rise Of The Synths, by the end I felt quite emotional after a wonderful journey back through my childhood. Synthwave is a very personal and involving genre that everyone and anyone will enjoy. It takes the listener on a journey far away from real life and we all need that escape from time to time. It is really well put together and a joy to watch. I cannot fault it so it gets pretty much full marks from me!!
The Rise Of The Synth is available on DVD & Blu Ray and as of the 5th July 2022 it is now available digitally so you have no excuses not to check it out!
