How were you introduced to Spacesynth?

[John_Calette]

Hi everyone! You can share your history about meet with spacesynth music. I will start first

In 2002 years. In Novosibirsk television on 4th channel existed two broadcasters and in air showed idents with use Laserdance tracks.
First ident on the first tv-channel used tracks Laserdance - Battle Cry, and second ident on the second tv-channel used tracks Laserdance - No Escape.

In 2012, in the Internet I found out that these two songs were used in idents and I started listening to tracks Laserdance. I'm so liked this is Laserdance tracks, what listened all discography this project. Later i found out, that Laserdance tracks composed by Michiel van der Kuy, and i started listen tracks of Proxyon, Koto, Rygar, Area 51 and etc. Also in 2013 years i found out, what all MVDK tracks is spacesynth and i started listen other spacesynth project. First project for me it Cyber Space with first album In The Beginning. It's okay. When i listened second album The New Planet i surprised, that some tracks from second album, used some LD sounds, that me started interested to spacesynth music, that i listened spacesynth projects as Macrocosm, Abbsynth, Daylight and etc. In generaly, more good tracks was made in spacesynth scene. I like it

[Neospace]

In the eighties and nineties I was listening to illegal pirate radio stations a lot, because the common radio was playing crap

Radio Stad Den Haag was an illegal radio station back then and they were playing Italodisco a lot, and so I learned to love Italodisco music. But sometimes they were playing something different… something instrumental... with driving basslines, nice synths, and very rhythmic beats… I loved it instantly! At that time I didn’t know it was called Spacesynth music though. I recorded some music on my parents “sound system” and played the tapes until they fell apart.

As I grew older music evolved into eurodance, house, techno, acid and newbeat, and later trance music. I loved it all, but every time when I was feeling down I listened to Italodisco music, because it made me feel happy

In the nineties I started to produce music myself on a Commodore Amiga, a Roland W30 and a Boss DR660 drum machine. I tried to make house music, and although some of my music was played in our local discotheques and pirate radio stations, I was never very successful with it.

Then “life happened” I got older, married, house, work, tax etc etc… and I abandoned music entirely. But every once in a while I still listened to Italodisco and Spacesynth

After some years I changed jobs and got some more free time; I needed a new hobby! I thought: what if I tried to make music again… nice! But then it needs to be something different from trance or R&B (), something I really love…

I rediscovered Spacesynth and tried to make it myself now, and although I am not very successful (especially my first works suck really bad) I really enjoy making it! And.. I found new friends that love this music too!

[GalaxyObserver]

I probably heard Koto's Visitor on the radio when it was first released but the most active memory and my first spacesynth memory was hearing Koto 's Dragon's Legend at my friends house (on his brothers new stereoset). I was hooked for life
After that i got Future Generation on tape and started collecting as much Koto and Laserdance as possible.

[Gregory]

My dad's favourite italo disco song is Visitors by Koto and used (and still is) to listen to it very often when I was younger. I kinda liked it but it wasn't THAT good for my taste those days (I was mostly on 80s synthpop-british pop). But listening and listening again I started liking it. The "big shot" happened when I searched Koto's discography and found Japanese wargame. I fell in love with it even from the first couple of seconds. Then cyber people came in with dr Faustus and void vision and that's it. I started listening more to this kind of music.

[CosmicBeing]

I was introduced to spacesynth by just looking up no lyrics synth music. I stumbled upon a track from Vanello. I loved it so I digged deeper into this music and then the term Spacesynth showed. I looked up that one word and I was like, "okay, who ever invented this genre is a genius" then came spacesynth.net, laserdance, koto, etc. After finding out how it was made that sparked my interest to create it. The End.

On a side note, very nice stories

[Librina]

Dear friends! After reading your messages in this topic, I decided to tell my story of meeting Spacesynth. I had a long way to this style. First I listened to Disco, then Eurodance, then Electronic Club music. And all the way I have not stopped loving Astronomy: I liked to look at the stars, read books about Space, and in the mid-2010s years I even began to attend a VK group dedicated to this great science. And, as amazing as it may sound, it was through Astronomy that I came to Spacesynth.
And then one day, sitting in the group "Astronomy & Space" VK and admiring the beautiful photos of distant worlds, I thought: "Well, such beauty can't help but inspire musicians to create their magnificent works!" After that, I wondered if there is a "Cosmic music"? Then I made a corresponding request in Yandex and soon found out that there is such a thing in the world, and this style is called Spacesynth. After reading a little about it, I decided to get to know it. And now I will tell you about it in chronological order.

1) On August 15, 2017, I started this acquaintance. The first composition, listened to and downloaded from the Internet, was a Laserdance work "Around The Planet". Then there were Galactic Warriors with the track "Summer Nights". In September of the same year, I heard the creations from Laserlight – "New Year's Flight" and Synthesis – "Distant Planet". Yes, that's how the "Spacesynth Era" began in my life.

I also learned a few more projects and musicians: KOTO, SynthOne, Chris van Buren, Holomatrix, Future Synth, Cyber Space, Space Project, Marco Di Luna, Galaxion, Galaxy Hunter, Vanello, Amateras, Resource X, Anosphere, Jan Schipper, Ernesto, Tom Lacy, Synth Elements, SuperVox, Ray Orion, CJ Rise, Abbsynth, Ergrover.

2) On August 21, 2018, a Swedish author Spacehawk debuted in my playlist with the track "Cosmic Expedition". I liked this piece so much that I decided to find out if there are any other such cool creations from this artist? Then I heard a few more of his compositions, I liked his style, and on October 10 of the same year Anton Eriksson, the creator of this project, became my favorite. I am very grateful to him for his wonderful music!

It is also necessary to mention such projects and authors: Marcel de Van, Italo4Ever, Alphawave, Extragalactic, Rama, Synth Void, Polaris, SZMC, Digimax, Electron, Albiero, Bellatrix, Synthaurion, Everdune, Vocoderion, RetroSynther, Protonic Storm, Staffan Ohman, Marco Rochowski, Oblivion, Amateon, TDHDriver, Black Hole, Zona-X, Galspace Project & Yury Sosnin.

3) On October 1, 2019, I registered on the website Spacesynth.ru which brought me a lot of positivity and good mood! Yes, at first I was shy to chat and leave messages on various topics, but this "adaptation period" soon passed, and on December 5 of the same year I published my first post. Now I have more than 2500 messages there, and it will grow over time.

I also have to say about these projects and musicians: Rygar, Rigelz, Cosmix, Hipersynth, Phobotrax, Solar Burst, Space Marine, Syntech, Cyberman, Cyber People, Petri Ikonen, Dreamtime, Gregory, Anders Lundquist, Intru.der, Nickolay Fedorenko, Ice 771, Pavel Panchenko & Oleg Lalykin.

4) And on October 16th I came here. Here I met both people already familiar from that forum, and new personalities for myself. So I welcome Galaxy Observer, RawBotic, and CJT! It's nice when new authors and fans of the genre appear!

Well, then my interest in the style dear to our hearts, I hope, will grow a little more, because it is filled with melodies that are amazing in their beauty! Although I now love Spacesynth more than Astronomy, I will always be grateful to it for bringing this musical genre into my life! And may it inspire composers to create their delightful masterpieces for many more years!

[Binary Ghost]

Well, in the second half of the 80's (when I was a teenager), I was listening to a lot of Italo Disco, German Disco (Boney M, Fancy, Mike Mareen, T. Ark, etc.) and electronic music (J.M. Jarre, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Yello, etc.). I loved the synthetic sound, but the vocals were always an unnecessary distraction to me.

Around 1990, Polish label Snake's Music started to release some ZYX albums on cassettes under license. When I was visiting my favourite music shop in my home town, I noticed two cassettes with cool sci-fi covers. First one was Proxyon's debut album and the second one was Koto - Masterpieces. I bought both of them and gave them a good listen, once I was back home. Proxyon was really cool (I especially liked Space Hopper), then I've listened to Koto. Once I've heard Time and Dragon's Legend and got proper goosebumps, I knew I had discovered my favourite music genre...

I was studying at the University from 1989 to 1996 and got hooked on Techno and Trance, I started DJ-ing a bit and I've made my first techno songs as tracker modules. But spacesynth was always dear to me and when I came back to my home town after graduating, I got in contact with Hypersound Records and opened the first online CD store with spacesynth music in Poland. Few years later, I have decided to start releasing spacesynth music myself and established AXIS Records. Our label's first spacesynth album (Zoltar - Cosmic Pirates) was released in 2003.

From back then, to running Alpha Centauri label in the UK from 2005 until 2013 and to me now, as Binary Ghost, producing some spacesynth tracks as a hobby - that was QUITE a ride.

And all because of that Koto cassette...

[Dzod]

My first introduction to electronic dance music was back in 1990 when I went to a nightclub for the first time and my mind was blown. The music I was listening to at the time In Scotland was New Beat, Belgian Techno and Italo Dance (not Italo Disco). I was completely hooked. The big tracks of the day were LA Style - James Brown is Dead, Antico - We Need Freedom and just about everything written by Frank De Wulf and loads more. I was completely hooked. An album I bought at the time was Reactivate Vol 1. https://www.discogs.com/release/145699- ... no-Anthems
Volume 2, 3 and 4 soon followed. I still listen to these albums today. It was round about 2002 I was doing some research on Discogs. I was taking a closer look at the producers of the songs on these Reactivate albums. I soon discovered that My favourite tracks by Mike Loucas, Ray El Lungo, and Denzil Slemming were not the producers real names. It turned out that their real names were Michiel Van Der Kuy and Erik van Vliet. I clicked on these two names and my mind was blown yet again. It turned out that these two guys either written or produced just about every single amazing dance record that I knew about for the last 14 years. It was like a treasure trove. I was working my way through the hundreds of productions they were involved in when I discovered Laserdance. There was no youtube back in those days. If you wanted to listen to these songs you had to use napster or other download sites. It took a bit of effort to find and download these records but I found them. It was among these downloads there were a few laserdance songs. I clicked on them and Once again my mind was blown. Spacesynth was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I was hooked. I was even more amazed at the quantity of music in this unknown genre. Equipped with this new knowledge I tried looking for Laserdance in the record shops. Couldn't find anything. The only thing you could get in record stores was house, techno, trance and drum and bass. I was producing house and techno at the time and this was my main focus and I forgot about it for a long time. It wasn't until the Synthwave, Retrowave and Italo Disco revival around 2016 that brought me back to Spacesynth. I rediscovered Laserdance all over again and a whole lot more. Space Holidays volume 8 was already out by then. It was like christmas listening to all the previous volumes. It was around 2016 that I gave up on producing house and techno and switched to Synthwave with some moderate success. My VCF Troopers writing partner was already writing new Italo Disco tracks around this time as well. We decided back in 2021 to put our heads together and have a go at writing some spacesynth which he is a fan of too. Two releases on Space Holidays so far and more to come.