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I've recently found myself in the mood to blog again, so I had a good think about what I'd like to talk about.  I thought it would be a good idea to explain how and why I like synth music.  When I say 'synth', I mean synth in its various forms, such as synthwave (who'd have guessed?!), synthpop and other genres that tend to use it.

Before I go on, I feel as though I should say that my taste in music is actually pretty eclectic.  I'll give pretty much anything a chance, as I think avoiding artists purely because of their genre is a bit unfair, and it could mean missing out on some pretty cool stuff.  However, synth, and electronic music as a whole, has always held a special place in my heart.  I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I hope you find my personal experience interesting.

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I think I owe my love of synth mainly due to my dad.  He had a Jean-Michel Jarre CD ('Images'; one of his compilation albums), and we'd sometimes listen to it together.  That was probably my first exposure to synth music..and I haven't looked back since.  I must have been no older than six at the time, but even then, it resonated with me.  I think it also helped that I've been into computers since the age of 3, as I found it cool that all of the tracks were created via electronic means.  The music itself was like nothing else I'd heard.  In addition to that CD, he had a Human League 'Greatest Hits' tape, which would regularly be played in the car.  Add that to similar artists, such as The Eurythmics and Erasure, and I think it's clear to see how my core taste in music was formed.

Around the same time, I also remember an audio visualiser I had for the ZX Spectrum (one of the most popular home computers in the UK back then).  It came with a set list of tracks, including the ET theme and even some of the aforementioned Jean-Michel Jarre tracks.  Pretty sure it was a freebie from one of the Spectrum magazines.  I used to play around with that program quite a bit.  Just a small thing I remember, but I'm sure it didn't do any harm in terms of nudging me towards the genre.

Fast-forward a bit later (...alright, maybe more than a bit..) to when the Internet made acquiring music easier, and I was able to acquire more music like that.  Yellow Magic Orchesra, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream...I could go on, but we'd be here a while. Naturally, it was all very much up my street.  A lot later, I also got into genres such as synthwave and vaporwave, which tied synth to my general appreciation of 80s music.

As a side, I also like 'Muzak', and anything along those lines.  In the UK, it's the kind of music you'd tend to hear during 'Pages From Ceefax' (yeah, showing my age with that one), or whenever a channel had technical problems/extended breaks without ads.  I really meant it when I said that I appreciate all kinds of synth.  There's just something about it!

It’d be remiss of me not to mention how synth was used in a lot in late 70s/80s film soundtracks.  I find it works really well to set up the overall tone of a film, or even just a particular scene.  The most notable composers were probably Tangerine Dream (Risky Business, Sorcerer, Firestarter), John Carpenter (The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween - all of which he directed), and Vangelis (Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire).  Synth appeared in a lot of horror films, often the perfect addition to the unsettling vibe they were going for.  It has a lot of versatility, though, as it works well with anything from a moody night scene, all the way to a moment of triumph.

A common criticism I've seen is that synth music sounds 'dead' and 'lacks a soul'.  I couldn't disagree more.  I think synth can be very evocative. Besides the fairly obvious imagery of a futuristic city with neon lights everywhere, it can also transport me to places like a beach at sunset...or even a tranquil lake, surrounded by mountains.  It can be very thought provoking for me, and often makes great 'chill out' music.  I listen to synth a lot whenever I draw, and it tends to get me 'in the zone' when I'm playing online games.  If music genres were somewhere you could live, I'd feel right at home on 'Synth Street'.

With all that in mind, it's really no wonder I ended up mashing up my enjoyment of synth and superhero fiction to create 'Synthwave'.  Of course, I can't really get the musical element across with only drawings and comics, but I will say that that genre she was named after heavily influences the kind of feel I'm going for.  For that reason, I'm not against doing some audio/visual projects with Synthwave in them...one day...maybe...we'll see...

...And hey, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up trying my hand at making my own synth music!

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That's a brief summary of why I like synth music so much.  If there's anything else you'd like to know about that, feel free to ask.  I'd also be happy to point you towards my favourite related artists.  In fact, here's a little list from the entire spectrum of what I've discussed.  You can assume the artists I've already mentioned are also on it.

Depeche Mode

Isao Tomita

Phaserland

Mitch Murder

Thomas Dolby

Kraftwerk

Daft Punk

Neon Indian

Imagination

Video Age

Megan McDuffee

Vektroid

Pet Shop Boys

Yazoo

Röyksopp

Beckett

TWRP

Toro y Moi ...and many more!  That's just what came to mind as I was typing.  I accept that some of the examples aren't exclusively 'synth' artists, but I find there's a lot of crossover with electronic music, so...

I have a lot of things to say about the upcoming charity stream (too much for two of three tweets!), so I thought I’d post something here, then link you to it.

This’ll be my fourth year of the Very Scary Scenario charity streams.  It’s the fifth overall, but I had to miss one year.  In fact, it looked as though I would miss this year’s.  It was only the sudden move to a place of my own that opened up the possibility of me taking part.

Of course, this year will be different.  I can’t travel down to Reading this year, so I’ll be taking part remotely.  While I’ll be in contact with the VSS South team in some form during the stream, it still doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be pretty much doing a solo stream this time around.  There will be SOME crossover, but it seems like it’ll be minimal.

As you may know, I haven’t really streamed much beyond three hours by myself, let alone over 24 hours (25 at the time of typing - likely to be more!).  A few hours is usually my mental limit.  For that reason, I have no idea how I’ll deal with the stream until the day comes.  It really is a case of ‘wait and see’.  All I can say is that I’ll try my best to stick around for the full stream.

In addition; here are some things I’ll have in place to make things easier for myself; Food - With the group stream, it was easy to eat while something else was doing something interesting on the stream.  As I’ll be by myself, I’ll have to take some extended breaks to eat my dinner and tea.  I’ll likely hide the webcam and mute the stream when that happens, just so I can eat/keep myself entertained.  I’m sure no one wants 10-15 mins of me just eating.  :P

Other breaks - Sitting at a computer for over 24 hours is different from sitting on a couch for the same amount of time, so it’s probably a good idea that I step away now and again.  I’ll still talk to the chat during those breaks, though.  In the early hours, when I might feel particularly rough, I’ll need to take some slightly longer breaks to make sure I can continue.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, now that my well-being plans are out of the way, what will I be actually streaming, you ask?!

As with all VSS streams, it’ll be a big mix of all kinds of games.  In my case, it’ll mainly be PC games, but I recently got a capture device working nicely, so some console games are also on the table.

Here are just some of the games you can expect;

Overwatch Enter The Gungeon Binding of Isaac PGA Tour 2K1 PS4 fighters with VSS South (currently looking like Tekken 7 and Injustice) The usual Jackbox sessions (streamed by VSS South)

There’ll likely be more.  I just need to figure out exactly what.  I can always download some small-ish games during the stream, if need be.

- Last of Us 2 continues to look good.  Can't wait to see exactly what goes down.  Definitely one of my most anticipated first-party games for Sony.

- Ghost of Tsushima could be a nice game.  Certainly looks very picturesque.  Combat system looks nice, too.

- Control has my interest, particularly as it's developed by Remedy.

- Resident Evil 2 Remake seems to be coming along nicely.  Up for playing that.

- Death Stranding still looks very unusual, but I'm interested to see how it all unfolds.

- The new Spiderman game is shaping up to be similar to the Arkham games.  Spiderman is my favourite Marvel superhero, so that's really good to see!