synopsis decay >

this thing of scribbling reviews and criticism about music comes in a very deviant, dangerous and deranged way (the three d’s). who am i to analyse and critique this album or that other one that comes my way? how dare i to evaluate and write about them if i do not possess a vast and academic education on music and criticism? these are some questions that always assault me when i have my headphones filled with music and i feel the urge to write, to put on words my thoughts of the music playing. this exercise is, obviously, one i enjoy thoroughly, otherwise i wouldn’t bother, at all! i tried to find excuses not to write them. then i found out that some readers actually enjoyed the piece, weather they agreed with my opinion and with what i wrote, or not. i remember that in the eighties i was writing to this regional newspaper and i was producing a weekly column entitled ‘the name of words’ and there was one article i wrote about the band telectu and their double vinyl album, off off. the disc was hand printed and with an edition of 500 copies. i listened to it several times before i dared to write anything down. it was the case of love at the first sight, or love at first listening, and i was terrified with the fact that i had to write about it. the fact was that one of the tracks was based on a numerical poem by eugenio de melo e castro said by an actor and accompanied by the electronics and electronic guitars of jorge lima barreto and vitor rua. the fact that i could use the poetry, the robotised voice saying the numbers, liberated me immensely and i could produce a piece for the newspaper. the reaction was minimal, from the readers, but, there is always a but, the fact i didn’t know much about the musicians and i could write as i felt, the article produced a small amount of correspondence between me and some curious readers. thus i kept attached to this idea: write what your instinct and ears tell you, you don’t need to know about music... i know this is a very bad excuse, but, as a melomaniac, i insist in being myself (and in the process i have to invent neologisms! melomaniac is a word that doesn’t exist in english! melo (music) maniac (obsessive), makes sense, no?)

something similar happened with the music of marco lucchi (reviewed here on the catalogue of wonders)... and something terrible is happening now as i see the notes on synopsis decay (there is an autobiography here as well.) i met synopsis decay music on the soundcloud website last year and i’ve been listening to these pieces since then. i could download some and the ones i couldn’t i kept signing in to streamline them... that was the way i came to write the following piece. something nice happened during the listening of those pieces. i became silent and i just allowed the music to flow. it was just two weeks ago that i realised that synopsis decay (marcello dirks from the netherlands) wrote comments about each and all the tracks he presented on soundcloud. horror, horror! i’ve listened to the tracks over and over again, and never noticed the comments! i confess that i refused to read those, as i had written the article about what the music told to. so, until today, i really do not know what marcello dirks wrote about his music, i just listen to the music and have the titles. the exercise may be futile, thus, of i publishing my images and thoughts, and then, oops, he just felt and explained the music completely differently... well, marcello, you may write back and contradict me. (to listen to the whole of the pieces, please go to sondcloud.com/synopsisdecay) i will be preoccupied only with a segment of his work, SONGS FOR THE DECEASED:

A SONG FOR THE DECEASED: this is a collection of six works of an extreme melodic ambient filigree where i find a satiresque grace that flows without notion of itself – and i ask, are these pieces a kind of innocence? the subtle piano playing in a delicate net, natural sounds pulsating and gently whaling in spirals of echoes. there are discreet changes of chords evoking an interior respect for memory. because memory seems to be implicit on these works. SOLITUDE TRAIN: starts almost inaudible immersed on distance sounds, almost unperceptible, a waltsy melody of hidden nocturnal life. one could title it adagio cantabile, or the portrait of a classical ignudus. DESCEND: once again the ghostly spiralling of echoes, soundscape/seascape of rusting vessels in the deepness of the ocean, the vibration of sound of a multitude of multicoloured fish. children playing on the playground, the underwater children, the mermaids. intermittent gulps of iodine and iron, the sirens calling for the souls. is this the undersea celestial paradise? the metal reverberation of an ethnic voice treated electronically in loops – this is an alternative dreamy and hypnotic cosmos that at the same time is tenebrous, is this an underwater cemetery? is this the place of the souls? the heaven of the dead? RADIANCE: this composition brings me memories of a commonplace, and yes, it sounds enoesque and buddesque, but that is a compliment. i remember to read that these were ‘ambient’ pieces. then comes the same old question, what is ambient music? einsturzend neubaten aren’t ambient music? noise, isn’t noise ambient? techno? they create and bring a ‘ambient’ to our brains, they spring reactions inside of us and result, also, on the environment we are in. or is ‘ambient’ a twinkling piano and natural sounds, only? musak, elevator music, new age chimes and flutes? (on this part i wrote a few paragraphs about what is ‘ambient’ but it is so repetitious that i just cut it out.) SOFIA: this track has got a very spiritual feeling to it. the initial dissonance of the chords are amazing, this is definitely anti-haste music, a lullaby to the mind, even with the discordance. who is singing in this operatic calmness, the mermaids or the lost souls? here we inhabit another world. if being dead sounds like this, i want to be dead! perfect example of the skills and artistry of mister dirks are the last three minutes where the chords and the melody takes us even deeper to the synopsis decay world. SCENT OF SPRING: this is impeccably esoteric and curious. there are echoes (inside my brain, while listening) of ‘memories of green’ by vangelis, but it is an aural illusion of mine. again we have plangent abstract background sounds, horses and carts, cars? i don’t know, i just feel this is right, the use of synths is majestic. are these more false memories or the essence of memory?

 synopsis decay is the ambient and contemporary project of dutch musician marcello dirks. marcello has been making music solo for the most part of his life but has also been playing in –mainly gothic, bands in the late 1980’s and the first half of 1990. born and bred in rotterdam, marcello now lives in nijmegen.after falling in love with the electric guitar and music in general at the age of ten, the tone was set for a life of discovery and wonder. later, in the early 1980’s and getting introduced to artists such as brian eno, harold budd, john hassle, steve reich, phillip glass, white noise, this heat, einstürzende neubauten, holger czuckay, tuxedomoon and the residents really opened up a whole new world and in them were the foundations for synopsis decay, the pavement was laid down to walk on. being extremely shy and insecure in those days, marcello started buying recording equipment and instruments to compensate for the lack of band members and consequently, became a self taught multi-instrumentalist. the very first recordings (which have been lost for the most part) where basically synth-tributes to the residents and tuxedomoon and later evolved into an eclectic mix of all sorts if genres. every moment not recording, was spend experimenting with any instrument and piece of effects’ equipment he could lay his hands on. though most of those experiments, where done with synthesizers and guitar, marcello also used woodwinds, voice and percussion. especially on the early days of midi, it delivered some nice, unexpected results of which only three (live/rehearsal room) recordings survived. these recording – na1, na2 and na3, where the first made using a strict template and created from a clear concept and is what synopsis decay is all about.where a project like the ‘songs for the deceased’ for instance, was born from the need to deal with the subject of loss, and had its particular timbre evolve from there ,the ‘memorized skies’ piece (five movements all together) was conceived through the combination of algorhytms and computer-generated notes (movements 1 & 2 are part of the catalogue of wonders’ first release ‘fables against gravity’ cata1). once these outlines where set, the process of human intervention began and the piece was written around those generated and pre-calculated notes using a strict setup of (virtual) instruments. while working on the piece, an image of 1980’s rotterdam sprung to mind. it was an era of discovery and wonder, frequenting all sorts of exciting (mostly squatted) places like hal4, de bunker, exit and so on, to satisfy the thirst for new, unusual,  undiscovered sounds and acts. tuxedomoon in particular became an act marcello followed almost religiously. therefore, this piece is a tribute both to the city of rotterdam in that period and tuxedomoon.