The Synthesizer Cooperation Synco was founded 1984 in Berlin by Frank Klare and Mirko Lüthge. They bought some expensive analog equipment from Tangerine Dream and composed music in their style. This CD consist of remastered and remixed cassette material (tracks 1-8) and new work (tracks 9-14).

Spyra is a German musician and producer from Berlin who has made numerous records in more than a decade, including releases with Dr. Alex Paterson, Hyperium Records, Fax Records and Manikin Records. His interpretation of post-electronic is a well-tempered mix of Krautrock-infused sequences accompanied by modern, neo-classic melody structures. Staub is not a memory of what Spyra has accomplished in the past, it presents modern live electronic elements with modern rhythms, building something epic and unexpected towards the finish line. Composed, played and recorded in only one take at each night, the music of Staub offers a fascinating duality between the blackness and the clearness. It's a strange ballet stuffed of contrasting choreographies. It's also an attractive pastoral ode where the shadows crawl on innocents melodies which try to anchor near our ears.

The title track opens and immediately you realise that Eric Snelders hasn't departed from the winning formula he used in his first release. This album has intricate sequence patterns, delicate piano interludes, washes of ambiance, enjoyable melodies, and throbbing bass sequences. Especially notable is the superb sound quality. Fans of melodic synth music with plenty of sequences will certainly find much to their taste on this album.

The trio made up of Steve Dinsdale, Duncan Goddard and Gary Houghton play various sequencers, mellotrones, guitars, Fender Squires, Moogs and samplers all to good effect. Radio Massacre International has been playing together since 1979, first as a band called DAS, which released 12 albums between 1980-87, and have recorded together as RMI since 1993. Emissaries is a 2-CD set, the first being a studio set of 6 tracks that make up the hour long Emissaries Suite, and the second documents a live radio performance from 2004.

With "Purple" Bas Broekhuis, Detlef Keller and Mario Schönwälder present their sixth color album, and as with the four predecessors was on the last album (see "Yellow") a pertinent hint hidden in the last track. The music slides quite relaxed on "Purple", richly electronically instrumented, and usually backed by discreet rhythmic patterns and percussive lines. Pure, almost simple, the electronic tissues are kept, quite crystalline, so that here the album title is reflected, so it refers to the amethyst. A walk through a sparsely lit, lilac-colored cave world may also reflect this music. But, every listener, every listener will surely design other mental pictures while listening…

The SYNthesizer COoperation Synco was founded 1984 in Berlin by Frank Klare and Mirko Lüthge. They bought used but still expensive equipment from Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze and played in the TD style of that era. The result is the music on this second CD of Synco, which reminds us to the Logos, Poland, Tangram time. Berlin School at its best, direct from Berlin.