Description
SYNTHICIDE is a Philippine concept project, fledging artist community and interest group for keyboard/synth players, synthesists, DIYers, circuit benders, makers and enthusiasts.
Activities mainly focus on the performer, maker, synth player, and the synth as the main instrument. But more niche and technical disciplines related to tinkering, music production and performance are also encouraged and investigated.
Initially intended as a synth-centric music movement, the concept has been expanded to encompass other traditional instrument-based, alternative and genre-defying music.
The name SYNTHICIDE comes from the title of the song performed by the American New Wave band SSQ that was fronted by Stacey Q in the early 80s.
Short History
SYNTHICIDE was founded in November 2010 by Noel Coloma Acosta as an offshoot of Restart 9: The Watari’s Machine Remix Project. It featured numerous artist contributors (contemporaries from music collective Electronica Manila) who each made their rendition of Watari’s Machine, a song by names are for tombstones (Acosta’s main music project).
Early projects consisted of a mix of electronic and modern rock music gigs around Metro Manila including the important sound art collaboration with art movement WSK (headed by Tengal Drilon) called The Gangan Synth Ensemble (later simply called The Synth Orchestra). This was a special version of The Gangan Ensemble utilizing synthesizers and keyboards that was facilitated by Tad Ermitaño (Children of Cathode Ray) using his conductor device (aptly named Volume Control) while being assisted by Cris Garcimo (Blend:er, Gentle Universe) and Erick Calilan (Ugong). The Synth Orchestra also had another performance in the proceeding WSK festival for the benefit of pioneering artist Lirio Salvador (Elemento).
Other early collaborators included Circa 1849 (headed by Chris Concepcion) and Dark Matter Collective (headed by Sam Vigilia), and Ruthless (headed by Jon Romero) some time before the hiatus. And then SYNTHICIDE took a break from producing music gigs and started using social media to search for like-minded Filipinos.
During the middle part of 2022 (as the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic was waning), Acosta decided that it was the right time for SYNTHICIDE to go back to the performance scene and has since produced more specialized and thought-out shows, including the return of The Synth Orchestra. Most notable were the SYNC series of events that specializes in combining artist talks, show-and-tell and performances; and the MODULUS series that celebrates modular synthesis.
SYNTHICIDE also tried its hand in digital music publishing simply dubbed SYNTHICIDE MUSIC as a case study for the possibility of running a music label.
Moving forward, SYNTHICIDE hopes to further expand its scope by collaborating with other music and artist communities and hopefully curate its own multi-discipline exhibitions.