Synapse (from Greek syn = together and haptein = touche, seize; meaning connection), describes the zone of functional contact between two neurons.
Touch the audience and make them “feel” the music: Synapson’s primary project since it formed in 2009 has been to unite French producers and multi-instrumentalists: Alexandre Chiere (keyboard, saxophone, beat and voice) and Paul Cucuron (drums, scratch, production and mixing).
Where did it all begin? A friendship born on the Biarritz beaches at the end of the 90s, progressively nourished by a shared interest became a devouring passion: musique, all music. “In short, Synapson is the result of a fabulous complicity. It is the realisation of a dream we have been building together since our adolescence”, explains Paul.
The 2000s Paul hosts a show on Radio Campus Toulouse. Alexandre – already an experienced jazz pianist and instinctive composer – sends him some of his first demos. “The production was clumsy but the melodies were already strong. I played all of them”, jokes Paul. Soon the pair got together in Paris. Alexandre producing at the high end, while Paul became a sound engineer “the hard way” as he says. Together they listen to everything that comes their way (house, disco, hip-hop, world music, etc.) locking themselves away in the studio for nights on end. Then, in 2006 they open a Myspace page where they put their first tracks on line. “We had each been making music alone for years, tells Alexandre, but when we compose together or share the deck in a club, something special happens. That special something that we try to capture and develop in each of our discs.”
Speed up to 2012 Synapson confirms their composed preference for a wide stylistic divide. The duo’s stamp is already there, easily recognisable: A slow BPM, powerful melodies, dizzying groove and unbridled desire. No factions for them. No predetermined style which restricts or diminishes. Instead it is the edification of generous music which combines all influences, as long as the desire is there.
Convergence is Synapson’s first album that it’s creators envisaged as a whole disc, total – a direct result of the philosophy which considers that anything that classifies avoids, overlooks the essential. Concept? “Our temperaments urge us to try any sound which touches us,” points out Alexandre. For Convergence, we imagined four distinctly different but complementary universes, like four different colours: world, hip-hop, house-funk and pop. All these genres are represented in three original songs. The outcome: this album is a kind of celebration of eclecticism, curiosity, diversity.”
A free, self-determining work with a concentration of influences (historical, modern, even futuristic), Convergence borrows, mixes, kneads and synthesises half a century of urban music in an original tapestry where groove and melody dance, become intelligent, illuminated and contrasting. “We kept perfecting this album until the last minute”, Paul recalls. It is an authentic example of the best that Synapson has to offer today. An electronic album built around real songs, telling authentic stories, to be listened to at home or anywhere else you might want to”. Examples are in the timeless tracks written with the Spanish-Russian singer Anna Kova (the hit “All in You”) and the griot Burkinabé Victor Démé (“Djon Maya Maï”).
Convergence: a mosaic album, like a voyage with twelve stages, travelling deep into Synapson’s obsessions. Or as its creators sum up: “the meeting place between the sounds and colours that haunt us.”
