Synth History

05/23/2026

What synth are you playing on International Synth Day (today)?

05/20/2026

Legendary composer and performer Steve Roach is next up in the 3Qs series!

From performing in a cave at the Canary Island of Lanzarote, to working with Matt Groening in the late 70s at a record shop, Steve was kind enough to talk about his set-up, go-to gear, early experience in LA and more. Excerpts above (including full answers)!

We’re excited to be co-presenting his Los Angeles performance with next month, A Fourth World journey of immersive sound and light.

Saturday, June 6, 2026
Immanuel Presbyterian Church
6:30pm; 8pm-10pm (performance)

If you haven’t been to one of the Age of Reflections performances, I highly recommend it! They’re generally experiences you’ll remember forever.

Here’s an excerpt of one of Steve’s favorite past performances in general:

[Synth History: Can you recall one of your most favorite memories from either recording in the studio or playing live?

Steve Roach: Performing in surreal environments like the 700-seat concert space at Jameos Del Agua on the Canary Island of Lanzarote is high on the list. All the gear had to be lowered into the cave with a crane boom. Incredible feeling to be immersed in this womb-like space and the music being held and hovering within the space and audience.]

Age of Reflections photos by Joseph Buscarello.
Interview

05/05/2026

New interview up with Croz Boyce, the side project of & of

Excerpts above and below.

[Synth History What have been some mainstay pieces of gear throughout your career?

Brian Weitz: Roland SH-2 synthesizer. I got one for free from a summer camp in the mid-90’s. They had no idea what it was. We’ve been using it since high school and used it on every AC album through Centipede Hz. It’s done double duty both as a synth and an fx processor. It’s been in the basement for a while though because I got too familiar with it and on the road I need to recall presents more than I used to.

Dave Portner: For me it’s the Roland Juno 60. It remains my favorite synth to play. I’ve had the same one since 1998.]

Read the whole thing on the site!
Photos by Charlie Boss.
IV .

04/24/2026

Well, this one is a true honor! The one and only producer, director, writer, composer, rapper, and de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan (): living legend RZA () was kind enough to answer three questions!

We sat down at Vidiots () in Los Angeles between a screening of his 2012 film, The Man With The Iron Fists in 35mm and The Mystery of Chess Boxing, 1979.

The screening was put on by 36 Cinema, RZA’s new distribution company, which is set to release his new film, One Spoon of Chocolate () on May 1st. Directed by RZA and presented by Quentin Tarantino, I highly recommend going to catch it in theaters if you can.

Excerpts above & below:

[Synth History: What is one of your favorite memories, either recent or from the past, from either recording in the studio or working on a film? First thing that comes to your mind.

RZA: Well, you know, too many things come to my mind at once! But one of my favorite memories is always being at Firehouse Studio, recording the first album with the Wu-Tang Clan, with all my brothers coming in and you just never knew what was going to happen. It was so unpredictable, so raw, such a unique moment of being. Kind of struggling, kind of ambitious, wishing. All these different things happening all at once. Making that first album will always be special.

I feel like my new film is a new 36 Chambers in the way of bringing talent together, taking the rawness of the tools I had to play with and really carving out a story that I’m very proud of, from the process of shooting the film to getting into post-production. Then with the music, I was able to collaborate with Tyler Bates and learn something different about composing. He actually bows this guitar [GuitarViol] and he’s got all these fu***ng pedals. That along with a crazy synth collection gives you some very unique sounds. There’s definitely two crazy cues in the film where you’re like, “What the f**k is that?” It’s like that Bernard Herrmann type s**t.]

Whole thing is online.
Intrvw:
Vidiots photos:
Studio photo: By MikaV, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

04/22/2026

Just played Tamashika!

Been posting about video games more often on here and thought I’d mention this one. It’s a psychedelic (extremely) face-paced first person shooter developed by (a creative studio founded by filmmaker Harmony Korine). I saw one of my friends playing it on Switch and downloaded it on a whim and my mind was kinda blown.

Soundtrack is pretty bonkers and has music that can only be heard in-game by Baby Pantera, Bandit Crü (DJ Fitness, Fayt, Jonny From Space), Bitter Babe, Cottintexts, c_robo, Du Plead, E.O.U, GRRL, Nick León, Somepoint Sound, Soother, Surusinghe, Two Shell, Vladimir Dubyshkin, and Yaeji.

Anyway if you’re looking for something to play with a cool soundtrack, highly recommend! Maybe I’ll stream it one of these days (believe it or not, I have a Twitch channel it’s - where I’ve played games like Doom, Xenoblade Chronicles, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (of which I played through in one sitting) etc.

Ref: Tamashika screen grabs.

04/13/2026

Join us for Gaspar Noé’s ENTER THE VOID at VIDIOTS.

🍿Wed, April 15th at 7:30 PM
Vidiots
4884 N Eagle Rock BLVD

Nobody does a mind-f*&k like Gaspar Noé, and Enter the Void may be his most hallucinatory work in an ouvre of envelope-pushing and eye-popping spectacles. This psychedelic tour of life after death is the 14th installment of Vidiots’ & Synth History’s Iconic Scores screening series, which highlights pioneering scores and soundtracks in electronic music!

PLUS: Before the show, we’ll be giving away a brand new Ltd. Edition 12” of Throbbing Gristle’s D.o.A. and a copy of Cosey Fanni Tutti’s hardcover book, Re-Sisters: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti.

About the soundtrack: Enter the Void blends musique concrète, experimental, and electroacoustic styles. Noé would collaborate again with Thomas Bangalter (of legendary electronic duo Daft Punk), who also scored Irréversible. Bangalter was originally approached to create an original score for the film, however due to his involvement scoring Tron: Legacy, he’d take on the role of sound effects director instead, providing a library of ambient sounds and experimental samples which Noé then compiled. The film includes a recording from electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire (BBC Radiophonic Workshop) of Bach’s “Air on the G String”, ANS by Coil which utilizes the rare, photoelectric ANS synthesizer (if you came to our screening of Solaris you might remember that composer Eduard Artemyev also used this!), Throbbing Gristle’s “Hamburger Lady,” LFO’s “Freak”, nearly every part of electroacoustic musician Jean-Claude Éloy’s compositions Shânti and Gaku-no-Michi, Toshiya Tsunoda’s “Music for Baby”, Alvin Lucier’s “Music for Gamelan Instruments, Microphones, Amplifiers and Loudspeakers”, works by Denis Smalley, Lullatone, Zbigniew Karkowski, and Thomas Bangalter‘s own track “Désaccords,” originally composed for Irréversible.

🔗 in bio.

04/09/2026

Next up in the Favorite Records series is

For this series, artists list 10-15 of their favorite albums of all time, rules being at least one must contain synths or drum machines of some kind. The point is to explore artist’s record collections whilst showing how electronic sounds coexist within a multitude of genres.

What’s your favorite of Devon’s picks!? Lots of bangers up there.

These include Eno’s Here Come The Warm Jets, released in 1974 [Brian Eno is credited with vocals, keyboards, synthesizer, snake guitar, electric larynx, treatments, instrumentation, production and mixing] and Pink Floyd’s eighth studio album, Dark Side of The Moon released in 1973 [in which the EMS Synthi AKS and EMS VCS 3 synthesizers are used].

Photos by
Lighting Assist:
Styling:
E-I-C:

Read what she wrote about all her picks up on the site!

04/08/2026

Next up in the Favorite Records series !

For this series, artists list 10-15 of their favorite albums of all time, rules being at least one must contain synths or drum machines. Why so broad a site with “synth” in its name!? The point is to explore artist’s record collections whilst showing how electronic sounds coexist within a multitude of genres.

Devon recently starred in the HBO/A24 original series Irma Vep directed by Olivier Assayas and was in Indie-cult favorite, My First Film directed by Zia Anger. She just released Pin-Ups, a reimagining of songs from artists like Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson.

Photos by
Lighting Assist:
Styling:
E-I-C:

Here’s an excerpt:

[Pavement – Wowee Zowee
This is one of the records that made me want to write songs. Stephen Malkmus’ witty and stream of consciousness lyrics are unmatched, and this record has some of their most beautiful songs in my opinion.

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
Kevin Shields once again creating out of this world sounds with his guitar. Featuring a cool filtered loop, maybe a drum machine on the last song “Soon”.

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
Their first record featuring Bobby Gillespie on drums. This record opens with one of the greatest songs, “Just Like Honey” It’s loud and it’s fuzzy and it’s like Phil Spector meets Velvet Underground.

4. Sonic Youth – EVOL
This record is great for a number of reasons, and one of them being Richard Kerns photograph of Lung Leg on the cover. The song “Madonna, Sean and me” is such an epic noise journey to go on, and “Starpower” is one of my favorite songs.

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
A sonic masterpiece. A technicolor explosion of synthesizers, rock epics, and food for thought lyrics.]

Read the whole thing on the site.

04/08/2026

Any Undertale fans here?

Was thinking about this game today and how good the soundtrack is, composed by Toby Fox who also designed the game. I can’t remember but I think recommended this to me pre-pandemic!?

If you haven’t played it yet, you play as a child who has fallen into the Underground: a large, secluded region under the surface of the Earth, separated by a magical barrier. You meet various monsters during the journey back to the surface, some of which may engage in combat. You can opt to be a pacifist (which is how I played after I learned it’s possible!) to appease monsters in order to spare them instead of killing them. Your choices affect the game, with the dialogue, characters, and story changing based on outcomes.

Highly recommend playing and the soundtrack is on Bandcamp.

Refs: Undertale screengrabs.

04/07/2026