We got caught in the winds of change with Russian based Cyberpunks Synthapex and spoke to Slava (left.) near the release of the groups debut album, Embers City.
[Edited for brevity.]
Synthapex has just sort of come out the blue. Can you give us a quick insight into your history?
Synthapex’s story starts in 2018 when I took a break from making metal music. I was in three metal bands at same time (Descenery, The World Within and Ode Sakura) and each of the bands had an album in the making. I felt that there were just too many studio and songwriting sessions, and rehearsals around metal. And only metal. I overdosed on it and could not enjoy it anymore. To avoid stagnating I decided to start making something new. In those days I listened a lot to Perturbator, Dance with the Dead, late Ulver, FM Attack and was like, this sounds cool, I want to make music like this. Said and done. That is how Synthapex was born.
In late 2018, I asked my friends Arthur Lesnitsky and Andrey Bulgakov if they could make a music video for Gone This Night. We started filming in November that year. During filming I met Anlee Kiddo and in 2019, I asked her to join Synthapex.
“Music videos are a very important element of what we are doing.”
In mid-2019, we had the music and nearly all the lyrics for the album written so it was a good time to start searching for a singer. I found the metal band Gaztrea who had just released a new EP. I was addicted to their music; vocal melodies and vocals style. And so I contacted their vocalist Kal and asked if he wanted to record the vocals for some of my songs. He checked out my demos and liked them.
I got the chance to collaborate with a lot of good musicians from all over the world on the album.
You cite Synthapex as being partially metal and goth. Those are very diverse genres what metal/goth bands inspired you with Synthapex?
My personal sources of inspiration are Pain of Salvation, Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, Tame Impala, Ulver, Queen, Opeth, The Mars Volta, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Massive Attack, Devin Townsend, Perturbator, Joe Satriani, Marillion, Electric Wizard and many others. I listen to different kinds of music. I like to get inspired by one genre and create something in another one.
You’ve amassed quite a few music videos (five at the time of writing) how do they fit in with the vision of Embers City?
Music videos are a very important element of what we are doing and I am very lucky to have Arthur Lesnitsky in the Synthapex team. He is very passionate about creating films and videos. He knows a lot about video production and he has a unique style. It is a pleasure to work with him.
Our videos are mostly based on Arthur’s ideas. When Anlee and I have a new song that we want a music video for we send it to Arthur asking if he would like to make a video for it. If he likes the track, and it may have nothing common with the lyrical idea of a song, he will develop his vision of it and if it is cool why not?
“Only time can tell what will happen.”
Tell me about the concept behind Embers City.
The songs are related to the themes of inner struggle, nostalgia, depression, betrayal, etc. This is just a superficial description though. We did our best to write lyrics with lots of metaphors and hidden messages.
Synthwave is heavily inspired by the neon cityscapes and cyberpunk futurist visions of the 80’s. What are some of your favourite 80’s TV Themes?
Star Wars and Blade Runner movie scores are gold.
Where do you see yourselves in the future?
We hope to keep creating and releasing new music and videos while experimenting with different genres. We want to perform it live around the world as well. But only time can tell what will happen with us. So let us find out.
Embers City is out 17th November and is made available through bandcamp.
