synopsis decay is the ambient and contemporary project of 44 yrs old, 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.
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