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Symbion Project
Wound Up by God or the Devil

Speed of Dark Music

Posted: Tuesday, September 18, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

Kasson Crooker is best known for his role in trio Freezepop, but with Symbion Project, he's able to take the influences that Freezepop only hints at - stuff like Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, and Wendy Carlos - and really dig deep into the techniques of early synthesizer music. Freezepop's music already incorporates the occasional electronic harpsichord arpeggio, but "Jesu, Joy of Man's Divisioning" and "The Ill-Tempered Synthesizer" are straight up homages to the electrified Baroque technicality of Wendy Carlos' late '60s albums like Switched-On Bach and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer. "La Fetichisme dans L'amour" has a distinctly futuristic vibe to it, with epic orchestral synths and a theremin sound that actually enhances the music rather than simply providing a cheap B-movie vibe, while "All Things are Ultimately Measurable" combines a soft pastoral theme with primitive-sounding synths, sounding for all the world like a soundtrack piece from an old Nintendo game like Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda (Crooker has a day job as audio director for a game developer, so this is probably no accident). Much to his credit, Crooker isn't content to merely honor the sound of those early recordings, but also the technique; Wound Up by God or the Devil was created entirely on a single analog synthesizer, with almost all the parts played by hand. The only downside to this is that it does lead to some self-indulgent moments. "Antiphon," for example, is a display of gradually increasing tempos that would have been astounding on a technical level in the late '60s, but doesn't offer much today. Fortunately, it's followed by "Vandalized Lovemap," an absolute delight of soft organs and synthesized string harmonies. Casual Freezepop fans and folks who only know the band from the Guitar Hero games probably won't appreciate Crooker's retro sensibilities, and might even mock them, but if you're interested in classic synthesizer music, Wound Up by God or the Devil might be the most endearing thing you've heard all year.