When I started with syndae 9 years ago, I never would have thought to make it so far to produce more than 400 issues of my podcast, including several specials over the years. Now, this is the official number 400 and I am so happy many of you listeners follow my shows on a regular basis. The idea of syndae is still the same as back then: to support and make aware of electronic music in its variety of styles. Over time, I surely crossed some musical borders if it seemed fitting. To me, it is always the spirit of a track that counts. Well, tonight's edition is quite special to me. And so is the playlist. Show number one presented the exact same artists as tonight (with one slight exception) in the exact same order. Of course, this is not a repeat, but a show with fresh and new music and two special tracks as well. Thanks for listening to syndae! And enjoy this edition with contributions by Spyra, moonbooter, Gert Emmens & Ruud Heij, and rohfaser feat. Stefan Erbe.

Time for some sweetness in our lives. Experiencing the world sometimes (or often) is a big enough rock to carry around in one's mind. Tonight's music will let you take a step outside the daily world and will be very gentle to your thoughts. It's not about forgetting the daily troubles but to have a counterbalance. Have a pleasant evening with the wonderful tracks by Sasa Tosic (Circles of Time), Chronotope Project (Ovum), Fiona Joy (Into the Mist), Anantakara feat. Mukti (The Never Dying Fire), Rudolf Heimann (Touch the Sky), and Steve Orchard (Theory of Communion).

So I read today about "success" in the area of bio-hacking. It manages to encode malware into a DNA strand that will infect software with a computer virus when analysed. Ain't this world crazy? Now, what if you would encode a music track into your DNA that will start playing whenever you are being scanned? That I would like. Passing through the security gates at a terminal and the system starts playing your favourite song. Really sounds like fun to me, maybe not so to the security personnel. However, talking about crazy. Tonight's selection of tracks may not be crazy, but they definitely have the magic to tickle your cochleas. Enjoy the wonderful tracks by weldroid (EXPTIME), MacroNoise (Caravan Planet), Protuberance (Music for Elevators Vol. 5 Part 1), SubCarrier (Field Emitter), and Antam Yar ft. Digital Skunk (Future Horizons: The Lanquidity).

Recently, they had a show on TV about the human heart. Among the studies they presented was one about the heartbeat influencing decisions and another one about the connection between heart beat and emotions. The latter can be quite sad, when sad emotions make one's heart ill, and happy, when a quicker heart beat makes one fall in love easier (you got it right, a quicker beat is the cause not the consequence). This makes me wonder, as music might also influence one's heart beat, if quicker music will cause you fall in love with the music easier than with slow music. We will do our own test series tonight, with some not so slow tracks and quite some beats. Let's fall in love with Floating Machine (Convergence EP), Samplestick (MH31), Paralitic Twins (Birth of Cosmos), Calling the Ghosts (Pleasure Machine), and Flembaz (Pote 2).

It's definitely time for a chill. No, not because of high temperatures. This Summer is definitely not giving me that, mostly dark outside, mostly raining as if living under a waterfall. Well, no, I simply need to get my brain to rest. It seems so busy with all the thoughts on business and private work. Do you have such moments as well, where your mind does not want to rest whatever you do? Or are you at peace with yourself? Maybe meditation helps. Why, I cannot meditate. Perhaps it's a mind thing? Last week's episode didn't do the trick, so tonight comes the second try. This time with chill out and relaxing downtempo tracks by Cosmic Touch (Reconnection), Gramatik (Epigram Deluxe Edition), Gumi & Kukan Dub Lagan (Future Horizons: The Lanquidity), Irresistible Force (Kira Kira), weldroid (EXPTIME).

For at least four years, about every fortnight a new volume of the Midnight Radio compilation was released. It always contained a bunch of tracks covering a very broad range of styles, from traditional and classic electronic to pop, ambient and experimental music. Not to mention, that it always came for free. Norbert Kutz put a lot of effort into this compilation series and to me it was a vivid source of inspiration and made me feel like an explorer of new worlds. Well, sometimes an era ends, and so did the compilation some weeks ago. At the end, somewhat ten final volumes were released with music submitted to Midnight Radio. Tonight it's time to say thank you for all the work on this compilation. Hence, this is a kind of dedicated edition of syndae, having tracks from several of the final volumes, that is music by Reskimus, Jesper Sorensen, Eagle, Johan Tronestam, and Cousin Silas.

Some people might say that ambient music is made for the background, to accompany something more important or to simply fill a gap in the environment to serve as acoustic noise. It's definitely not so. Ambient needs ones full attention, to have the right experience of its richness and beauty. It's OK to ignore it, if one has no interest. But you will miss a lot doing so. For me, seriously listening to ambient music is an amazing source for creating many kinds of images in my head, and emotional strong ones. An important detail is to let the music sink into your mind and stop chewing that damn potatoe chips. It may not work everytime or for everyone. So I hope, some of the music of tonight's show will reach you guys out there. And I am fully aware, that me talking over the tracks might disrupt doing so. But, hey, go on and fetch the releases presented and relish them in their wholeness. Only five such tracks are on tonight, gifted to us by Levente (Empires of Silence), David Helpling (A Sea Without Memory), Sava Marinkovic (Through the Air), Giulio Aldinucci (Boule à Neige), and Simon Wilkinson (Merging the Infinite).

Are you on facebook? Well, this question might sound a bit awkward if you are reading this in the syndae group. But maybe you are reading it in some forum or on syndae's homepage. Now, are you? Do you also spend so much time for nothing but checking the stream for interesting posts? I do, and each time I tell myself, it's mostly wasted. On the other hand, I have quite a lot of cool musicians as contact (or friends as fb calls it) who inspire me to continue running my podcast. While the social media surely has its shortcomings, there is always someone that is worth staying. And I can tell you, it is worth listening in to tonight's edition of the show as well. Actually, as always, but each time it's great fun for me to present some really outstanding works, like the tracks this time which are by Bacila & Senex (Midnight Radio Compilation 81), Visible Silence (Into the Deep), keiss (TEMS. Point: Beshtau), Stan Dart (Ecclesia), Telemecanique (Meetings), and Hollmspeed (I am Like Not Real).