Synaptic Voyager
By: Dream Chimney
The following interview was conducted on February 3, 2025
Matt White and Paul Baines hail from Sheffield, the city that has had a monumental impact on the UK’s music scene. Along with the likes of Winston Hazel, Crooked Man and Chris Duckenfield, Synaptic voyager have been an integral part of this solid underground movement.
Making music together since 1991, and with recent releases on Frame Of Mind, Acquit and Telomere Plastic, the duo are clearly on a roll, wearing the heritage of their city on their sleeve and delivering what can only be described as heartfelt, authentic machine music made with love and soul.
This week sees the duo release ‘Dawn Til Duk’ on London label Cyphon Recordings. This is the playlist to their afters.
GALAXY 2 GALAXY - JOURNEY OF THE DRAGONS
We begin by taking a journey into the cosmos. The arpeggio here is almost beyond description. Like being touched by God. How could a mere mortal even dream of such music?
BOARDS OF CANADA - SICK TIMES
Hugely talented Boards of Canada created another masterpiece here, one that you must play every time you find yourself being dropped from the underside of a B52 bomber and propelled to the edge of space at hypersonic speeds, as in the video. One to touch the soul.
DER ZYKLUS – FORMENVERWANDLER (SHAPESHIFTER)
For the last 3 trillion years, this track has been recognised as the national anthem of interdimensional wormholes. It also sounds phenomenal in the here and now.
ILLUMINATOR - ALL ROADS END HERE
Continuing the space-faring theme, this piece documents a lonely excursion to a distant interplanetary nebula. Otherwise, very little is known about this track.
LAB RAT XL – LAB RAT 3
Drexciya's James Stinson unleashes yet another magical track with Lab Rat 3. Synthesizers and drum machines dream of being part of a track like this. The rest of the album is superb also.
CARL CRAIG - A WONDERFUL LIFE
Another pioneer of techno, Carl Craig has always been, and remains, a massive inspiration to Synaptic Voyager. This unbelievably emotive track is another masterpiece.
MODEL 500 - OCEAN TO OCEAN
Juan Atkins needs no introduction, the word "legendary" does not do him justice. Together with Martin Bonds, who provided the captivating, exceptional strings, he created this exceptional track.
КИНО / KINO - ГРУППА КРОВИ / GRUPPA KROVI (BLOOD GROUP)
now switch tracks. We change lanes so drastically, that we find ourselves in a different dimension. This dimension is located in the USSR, circa 1987, where Viktor Tsoi's KINO was having a stratospheric hit with this track.
ADO GEGAJ – NAZOVI ZBOG NAS (CALL FOR US)
Continuing the dimensional shift, we go over to Bosnia & Herzegovina. Ado Gegaj turned someone's telephone number into a hit record with this track. The chorus begins: "2-2-5-8-8-3". But how to explain why we love this Sarajevo-based superstar? The algorithm takes you to new places, and sometimes you want to stay there.
BARRY WHITE – SHO YOU RIGHT
As the night draws to a close, the electricity meter runs out of credit. Billions, perhaps trillions of nights have ended, or perhaps, only just begun, with one of Barry White's timeless hits playing, and we bid you goodnight with his 1986 classic. Safe journey.
Check out the latest release from Synaptic Voyager.