Synapsyche

The Italian electro-industrial duo Synapsyche crafts a severe and ominous sonic palette steeped in anguish and dread. Club audiences embraced this approach, which in turn earned the pair a contract with Alfa-Matrix—one of the scene’s foremost imprints—for their third album, In Praise of Folly, issued in 2019.

Stefano “Mannequinetik” Rossi established Synapsyche in 2008 in Ferrara, Italy. A composer and songwriter drawn to his preferred EBM acts, Rossi sought a vocalist to complete the project. He eventually connected with Marco “Katatronik” Mantovani, a versatile singer whose background included both melodic rock and death metal ensembles and who could supply the clean and harsh vocal styles Rossi required. What began as a casual side pursuit soon grew into a committed endeavor; the two began circulating demos. Their earliest released recording appeared in 2012 on a Gothic World Records compilation. The next year they issued the self-released EP “Wait/Hate,” followed in 2014 by the full-length Crashdown Connected. The music combined gritty, aggressive, and driving textures with a clear melodic core, while the lyrics addressed the vanity and folly of the human condition.

In 2015 the duo signed with the Russian label SkyQode, which put out the EP “Hate and Psyche” and the second album The Abyss Effect in 2016. Their ascent through industry channels continued when they joined the Belgian imprint Alfa-Matrix in 2018; the label had already featured one of their tracks on its well-known Endzeit Bunkertracks compilation series. Their first release for Alfa-Matrix, the acclaimed In Praise of Folly, arrived in 2019. Preceded by the EP “Mirror Terror,” the album benefited from the project’s largest studio budget to date, yielding a noticeably smoother and more refined production.