Symmetry- Themes For An Imaginary Film

Label: Italians Do It Better
Format: LP

Released: February 2012

Symmetry (aka Johnny Jewel) finally releases his long awaited 'Themes For An Imaginary Film', almost two hours of incredible synth music inspired by European noir films and the music of the American minimalists. The car is a major theme throughout the album, and there is a constant sense of propulsion, each track driving the music forward to its moving, sung conclusion. Originally tipped to create the score for the film 'Drive' this is not that soundtrack, although the artwork discretely nods to it.

The balance is near perfect, the dynamic between tension and release holds the record together. The peaks and troughs are regular, and the sounds continually renew themselves. Crystalline synthesizer lines solidify and shatter over chunky Italo beats, cymbals clatter menacingly and vintage keyboard sounds deliver the kind of ascending/descending dynamic you'll remember from Dario Argento and John Carpenter soundtracks. Melodic ideas are explored and discarded, basslines loom and dissipate.

There is a precision to this record that is difficult to describe, while it references the kind of synth soundtracks that you'll hear on a lot of films from the 1980s there is a lot more space, a razor sharpness to the editing that cuts out the decadent, noodling aspects of that era and introduces a stripped down aesthetic that drips with colour.