THE RISE OF THE SYNTHS

Iván Castell's low-budget, partly crowdfunded documentary 'The Rise of the Synths' charts the genre's humble underground beginnings to its impact on today's pop culture. "You don't know it," mentions one of the multitudes of producers who are interviewed, "but you've probably heard it in advertising or videogames." The film makes a reverse historical sweep of the synthwave genre, ending where the music started with the sober, even ascetic work of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream in the 1980s. The decade came to an end and interest in synth music waned, with youth culture moving on to grunge, indie rock and hip-hop. However, by the mid-noughties there was already a generation of young musicians who had grown up on B-movies and arcade games, and wanted to recapture that sound.

Castell employs a diverse and global set of talking heads, which gives a sense how far the internet has helped this genre travel. The documentary hops around as he speaks to Power Glove from Melbourne (who provided the soundtrack to the retro-futuristic video game Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon), Nantes from Paris, Ten from New York and seemingly dozens more of these "synthriders" from London, Spain, Belgium, etc.

Director John Carpenter ('Assault on Precinct 13', 'Halloween' 'Escape from New York'), who "started the whole ridiculous four-note riff that could be really creepy", is employed as the documentary's narrator, recording his observations onto a cassette tape to be taken back in time by a dude with a neck tattoo driving a DeLorean, in a series of interstitial segments.

Synthwave is a genre of music that's inextricably tied to the soundtracks of movies like 'The Terminator', 'Gremlins', 'Back to the Future', 'Beverly Hills Cop', 'Aliens' and 'Thief'. Particularly revered by modern-day producers are Vangelis for his 'Blade Runner' score and Giorgio Moroder for his work on 'Scarface', 'American Gigolo', 'Cat People' and 'Top Gun', as well as Keith Emerson, Wendy Carlos, Tangerine Dream, Goblin, Jean-Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk.

Why does this music still appeal to people? "It takes the feelings that were projected by things we loved in the '80s and converts that emotional response into music," says UK group Gunship. "The '80s were a less cynical time and film had not crossed that awful, self-aware meta thing that we're witnessing now." Social media and blogging play their parts, with people sharing their fetish for the neon lights and kitsch fonts as well as the music. Current TV series like 'Cobra Kai' and 'American Horror Story' are also cited, along with 'Thor: Ragnarok' and Taylor Swift's 'Style' album. The charm of synth music is innocence - the fact that, at heart, synth music is still the result of nerds fiddling with keyboards in their garage. It has the distinctly idiosyncratic sound of creators who are on the fringes of pop culture looking in.

This musical style isn't for everyone, and it isn't anything new either. As Texan producer John Bergin notes, "It's a reappropriation of past sounds to make a new trend." But if this sounds like something that interests you, Iván Castell's 'The Rise of the Synths' is worth 80 minutes or so of your time.