Symmetry creates a world that exists entirely between the hours of midnight and 4 AM. It is the sound of a city seen through a soft-focus lens: blurred streetlights, wet pavement, and the quiet hum of distant machinery. The music relies on a deep, resonant analog warmth that feels both vintage and timeless, avoiding modern digital sharpness in favor of a hazy, tape-saturated glow.
What makes them distinctive is their mastery of negative space. While many electronic acts clutter their tracks with layers of percussion, Symmetry lets a single, throbbing synth pulse carry the weight of the song. There is a strict, almost oppressive discipline to their arrangements, where every note feels like a deliberate choice in a larger visual narrative. It is music that demands you project your own movie onto its rhythmic skeleton.
Start with Themes for an Imaginary Film. It is a sprawling, thirty-seven track odyssey that perfectly encapsulates the project's origins as a rejected film score. It functions less like a traditional album and more like a continuous environment, shifting slowly from tense, noir-inspired rhythms to expansive, cosmic ambient passages.
Symmetry is an American instrumental musical duo consisting of Johnny Jewel and Nat Walker of Chromatics. In late 2010 Jewel was asked by director Nicolas Winding Refn and lead actor Ryan Gosling to score the film Drive. He collaborated with Walker, but their material was ultimately not used. However the film soundtrack did include previously released music from Chromatics and Desire, both on Jewel's Italians Do It Better label. Jewel and Walker then formed Symmetry and further reworked and expanded on the original tracks, ending up with nine hours of music, two hours of which were released as an LP entitled "Themes For An Imaginary Film" in 2011. In 2011, they also released a promotional LP entitled The Messenger, in a limited edition of 1,500 copies on clear vinyl. In October 2013, a video for the song "The Hunt" was released via YouTube. In 2017, The Messenger was re-released with bonus tracks. Symmetry has performed live internationally at private events for a number of fashion lines, including Gucci and Chanel. Their song "The Hunt" is the main theme song to the American television series Those Who Kill on A&E. On February 3, 2015, Symmetry released a remix of the Chromatics' track "Yes (Love Theme To Lost River)," the trailer music for Ryan Gosling's first film as a director, Lost River. Symmetry, at first, is in progress with the second album, "Still Life," but with the breakup of Chromatics in August 2021, and the fact that Dear Tommy may not release to the public, it is unknown on what the second album could be if it may not be released at all.
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); analog warmth, minimalist, reverb heavy (production style)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); mysterious, brooding, nostalgic (moods)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); mysterious, brooding, nostalgic (moods)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); analog warmth, minimalist, reverb heavy (production style)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); analog warmth, reverb heavy, tape saturation (production style)
Shares analog warmth, minimalist, reverb heavy (production style); synthwave, ambient techno (subgenres)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); analog warmth, reverb heavy, tape saturation (production style)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); mysterious, brooding, nostalgic (moods)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); instrumental only (vocal style)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, downtempo (subgenres); instrumental only (vocal style)
Shares synthwave, ambient techno, analog warmth, instrumental only (signature)
Shares synthwave, tense, tape saturation, ambient techno (signature)
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