The great thing about the internet is that you can access information world wide from your home or on the road or simply anywhere nowadays (well, mostly anywhere). One of the many reasons I put up a podcast on electronic music, so people around the globe can find and inform about our beloved ambient and electronic music. Why do I consider this important? Because of the biggest problem given by the internet: It's huge! Finding the music you are demanding for might be quite an undertaking. I see podcasts and also radios as a hub for pointing to great music you like. Of course, you can stream away with modern services. Great if they serve your taste in sound, they don't serve mine. One reason for me to listen to several wonderful podcasts on my type of music (well, except for syndae). And to be of service to you, here comes a brand new edition of the show. The new year only is two weeks old and there are quite a bunch of new releases available or planned for the near future. Enjoy some of these gems tonight coming from moonbooter (Cosmosonic), Lone Cosmonaut (Geräuschkörper / Compilation), René van der Wouden (Assurance), Stan Dart (Supernova), Tastenklang (Polyphony), Robert Scott Thompson (Telemetry).

Are you having any resolutions for 2018? A kind of silly tradition where one resolves to changes and break them rather sooner than late. Always! Okay, maybe not. I don't do resolutions anymore, but maybe they help some of you. So the holidays have passed, a new year is born, except for some Asian countries celebrating on the new moon of the first lunar month. No fix date here. I always wondered what the point of celebration would be, as it really only is about incrementing a counter. Well, maybe it's because the earth's trip is back to the start, having a great journey on the circular road around the sun. However, life is always better with some great music. Hop in to syndae and listen to the fine tracks by Wonderfeel (Lao Dreaming), Cosmic Trigger (The Hallucinatory Mountain), Jazzyspoon (Achluophobia / Compilation), Chuzausen (Attempt to Communication), Meta Meat (Rien Ni Personne Vol. II & III / Compilation), Aevin (Snowflakes VIII / Compilation).

So this is it. The end. The final show for 2017, two days before we are done with the year. It saw 44 episodes of syndae, well received by you my dear friends. And I am grateful you listened in to it. So much great music this year. Hence, a big thank you goes to all the artists out there producing all this cool music. More thank yous go out to all the labels and musicians supporting my show by submitting their music. I couldn't do what I do without you. And ... well, this should not become a thank you letter. Of course, big, big thanks to my wife for being so patient with me when spending so much time listening to music and visiting events. So, this will be my goodbye for 2017. I felt it needs a bit of party-worth tracks, and those I got. Hope you will have me again in 2018. And for tonight, enjoy the music by Step High (Celestial Colors), Essence Project (Chapter 1), Le Peuple de L'Herb (Music to get High to / by Youth), Tron Sepia (The Theoretiker), Rudolf Heimann (Tiefenrausch), Kinza (Sei shin Byoin).

So we just put up a tree in the living room, which will be decorated for christmas eve and remain there for several days. Is this a silly tradition? Well, my wife loves having this colourful tree and who am I to disagree (better to not start fighting with your life companion, especially on Christmas)? Ok, so I checked for what happens to the trees after they leave the home after the festivities. Luckily, they get collected by city services and will be returned to the natural cycle. Overall, it seems not too bad, no nature disaster. Surely not ideal, but acceptable. And I must admit, it does look quite nice to have some colour and light and green in the room. To accompany the scenery, I have some fitting music on this edition. No Christmas music, beware, I've been wham'd countless times this month. But great electronic tracks by Steve Roach (Spiral Revelation), Erik Wøllo & Bernhard Wöstheinrich (iNDEX05 / Sampler), Stefan Erbe (Genesys), Kellerkind Berlin ft. Martin Neuhold (Colorful Thoughts), Oesterhansen (Trip to Proxima B / Compilation), J. Arif Verner (From a Distant Horizon).

It's crazy how many people are on the road these days. And I wonder whether they all are driving home for christmas. On the contrary, perhaps, they are on their way to the shopping malls and city centers to hunt for presents. Which seems a common fun scene in American films, where a raging crowd storms a shop to fight for the last action figure or rag doll. Maybe our fellow listeners from the US can tell, if this is true or just made up. On syndae, there is no limit on downloads for each show, so no need to run over each other. And it is very easy to get hold of your personal copy of the podcast, to listen to wherever and whenever you want. Nevertheless, the music to be heard is at least as valuable as a rag doll, so simply join me and listen to tracks by Cosmic Trigger (The Hallucinatory Mountain), Yomgaille (Repetition and Motion), Infinite Third (Channel(s)), Rudolf Heimann (Tiefenrausch), LooneyJetman (The Lonely Sky), MTA Lab (In Luv).

While the world is still getting more and more grey, I have to admit that at the moment I prefer colourful sceneries. Not only in imagery but also in music. I guess, I am not alone and it is also one of the reasons for having all these festivities at the end of the year. And while it seems intreaguing to celebrate christmas time in a swimsuite, I prefer the northern hemisphere style of the seasons. Nevertheless, also quieter music somethimes gives me a good time, for tonight we have such material, not quite ambient, but close. Have a joyful session on syndae with tracks by Synesthesounds (Studio 4632 2017 Ambient Sampler), Cousin Silas & Kevin Lyons (Beyond the Infinite), Steen Chorchendorff Jorgensen (Out of Thin Air), Synthstudiodevries.com (Constellation Orion), Fabio Anile (Dense).

Finally, these black Fridays and cyberish Mondays are over. But wait, not quite, there are some shops still having a "cyber week" running. And, of course, not long before all the Christmas sales go online. Oh, boy! Are you in for these shopping marathons? The more I scan such shops, the fewer stuff I find that I really need. It seems just to be this "oh, hey, that's a good price" thing. So I usually don't join the ralley and stick to what is actually on my wanted list. Too bad, though, that some of these shops deal with electronic music, which makes it very hard to resist. Very ... well, I have to go, ho ho. But not before I let you know about tonight's show, which features tracks by Sensory++ (Art of Sadness), Sequential Dreams (Metmorphic Waves), ARC (Index05 / Sampler), DASK (Insecta Extended), Bouvetøya (Machines for Collective Living).

Artificial intelligence has been the talk of the town lately. When I left university, I actually started working in the field of AI and it was quite as big a topic back then as it is today. Well, the focus has shifted a bit. Back then it was a technology high, nowadays it is rather marketing driven for having intelligent systems to raise more attention and adopt to customers to sell more goods. Well, what about AI in art? Will computers one day start creating music, optimized for profit? Or is it possible that even AI created music might become art? We may still live to experience the advances in artificial intelligence and whether it will only be applied for business. Computers might become creative, although we humans most likely will not recognize or understand it. But for now, we still have beautiful human minds out there creating fascinating and delightful soundscapes, like the tracks on this edition painted by Aleks Michalski (All These Little Elements), David Helpling (The Sleeping Sessions), Colin Rayment (Architects Of Orion), Robert Logan (Sculptor Galaxy), Ivan Black (We are Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On), and Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate (Broken but Still Standing).