Charlie Syntari – SynthNation (2025)
Charlie Syntari has never been one to follow the crowd. On SynthNation, his first full-length record, the Cape Town-based producer steps firmly into the limelight with a confident collection of tracks that feel at once familiar and fresh. Drawing from the golden glow of ‘90s dance and the shimmering nostalgia of early noughties trance, Syntari reimagines classic club motifs through a thoroughly modern lens, without ever losing sight of emotion.
There’s an unspoken tension in today’s electronic music landscape: the push toward pristine algorithmic perfection often comes at the expense of soul. What SynthNation does, brilliantly, is navigate that tension with nuance. It’s not just a showcase of production prowess; it’s a deeply personal journey dressed in the sequins of euphoric synths and thudding low-end. Syntari clearly understands the mechanics of dance music, but more importantly, he understands its heart.
The album plays like a long-lost love letter to the communal highs of the rave era, but it’s filtered through a contemporary emotional palette. That retrofuturistic blend doesn’t just pay homage, it evolves. Glittering leads and bouncing basslines recall the oversized ecstasy of peak-era Eurodance, but Syntari adds something more intimate, more reflective. He taps into the power of nostalgia without leaning too heavily on it, carefully balancing pulse-pounding rhythms with an unmistakable lyrical vulnerability.
It’s clear that each track is a carefully layered composition, built with the meticulous attention of someone who knows restraint can be just as powerful as release. Syntari’s classical roots surface in the structure and pacing: swells are earned, drops are delayed for maximum catharsis, and motifs echo subtly across the album’s runtime, creating a cohesive sonic identity. These aren’t just songs designed for peak-time club play; they’re stories, each one pulsing with an undercurrent of emotional urgency.
Even at its most energetic, SynthNation feels grounded. There’s a rawness beneath the polish, a sense that these songs were born not in a rush to go viral but from genuine expression. Syntari’s approach to vocals is particularly telling. Rather than front-load his tracks with hooks-for-hire, he uses vocal snippets with surgical precision, allowing words to linger and echo in the spaces between beats. These fragments function like mantras, looping into your consciousness and slowly taking root.
That emotional centre is where SynthNation finds its depth. In a genre so often concerned with spectacle, Syntari offers a quieter kind of power. He draws his inspiration not just from vintage gear and rave flyers, but from the very human need to escape, to reflect, to heal. At times, the album aches, yet it never wallows. It lifts you, not by denying the darkness but by dancing through it.
Perhaps most impressive is how seamlessly the entire record flows. From the opening moments to the final fade, there’s a deliberate narrative arc, a sense of movement both literal and metaphorical. Syntari is not merely producing tracks; he’s building a world. And it’s a world where electronic music doesn’t have to choose between brains and bodies, between nostalgia and innovation. It can have it all.
Find out more about Charlie Syntari on his Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
Sent to us by Obsidian PR.
