Hey Levi, can you tell us about yourself and what got you into music?

I got into music by teaching myself guitar, writing some bad songs, and starting an emo band in high school. From there I was obsessed and it was full speed ahead! Eventually, I started adding more and more instrumental sections to our music until I realized that it was the part I loved the most about making music, which is when my focus shifted.

Your work conveys a lot of emotions as if we’re following a storyline, what is your creative process and how do you decide a song to be over?

Thank you! In general, the first phase is to play around on an instrument until I find something that triggers some emotion in me – either a sound or musical phrase. Then I develop the music by finding and exploring the depths of that initial feeling. Following that is a long editing phase where I make sure that each and every note is contributing to the emotional journey, often cutting a few parts at this stage. For my own music, I let this part of the process take as long as it takes.

Recording and mixing music is a process of chasing the ideal sound I have in my head. I have strong perfectionist tendencies so, once I get to this stage, my technique is to book the mastering engineer so that I have no choice but to call it finished by that date! Admittedly I’m still learning when to stop but, in the end, I think that if the music makes you feel something then it’s working.

What skill sets does it take to compose for movies compared to skill sets required to record an album?

The technical skills are similar but the processes feel completely different to me. When writing my own music there are no limitations and I could make absolutely anything, so the main difficulty is finding direction. What I love about composing for film is that it gives you a specific goal so it feels more like solving a puzzle, with every decision focused on serving the story.

The main additional challenge is communication. Musical ideas can be extremely difficult to communicate, especially with non-musicians, and it’s important to spend what little time you have working towards a soundtrack that the whole team will love.

One of your pieces “Since Last Letters” has been featured in a short film by Nils Clauss similarly called Last Letters, Dedicated to the 304 victims of the Sewol ferry tragedy and the families they left behind. How did it come about?

I have collaborated with Nils Clauss regularly over the past six years and he’s one of my favorite filmmakers. We had both been following the aftermath of the Sewol tragedy, and Nils had even been in touch with some of the families of the victims. At that time there were a few films about the tragedy but they were centered on the causes and the resulting anger of families and public at the government. These had their place, but Nils wanted to create something beautiful – a space for the families to remember their lost ones.

For years we had been talking about the concept of blending the genres of documentary with my music, and with the aesthetic Nils had in mind for Last Letters it was a natural match. Coincidentally, one of the stories told in the film was about the last letter a son received from his father. Hearing him tell that story makes my cry every time I watch it.

You say your second love is reading, do books influence the outcome of your music, if yes how?

I’m sure that they do, at least indirectly. I read all kinds of books but mostly I try to find books that can make me see things in new ways, and often my favorites encapsulate the same kinds of emotions I like to include in my music.

Your latest album "A Shifting Lightness" features an incredible level of sophistication, what is the importance of details in your work?

When I create music I try to make sure that every detail contributes to the emotions in the music, from the notes played to the texture of the sound. In the past, I carefully crafted these details myself, but with A Shifting Lightness, I tried to leave more of it up to the players and the environment. The most rewarding part of the project was hearing the musicians deliver their performances, each adding their own subtle details that brought this album to life.

Right now I’m blown away by how quickly people have been able to adapt their entire lifestyles to cope with this pandemic. I’ve been realizing that so many things that I previously considered “the way the world works” are actually not immutable but are just the way we’ve set up our societies. It makes me wonder what kind of positive change we might be able to take away from this once it’s all over.

Listen to Levi Patel's amazing work on Bandcamp.

When I create music I try to make sure that every detail contributes to the emotions in the music, from the notes played to the texture of the sound.

Composing musical stories with Levi Patel

Hey Kasson! Can you walk us through your background, and what led you to start Symbion Project?

As a kid, I grew up in a really musical household and took classical piano, cello, and pipe organ lessons, followed by studying music production and synthesis at Berklee College of Music. I’ve spent my career focused on audio technology experiences with 13 years spent creating interactive music/dance video games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Dance Central, and years spent at Microsoft working on spatial audio technology for HoloLens.

For the past 5 years, I’ve been dedicated to composing music, playing shows, and scoring movies. But through all of that Symbion Project has been a constant musical outlet for me, sometimes creating solo instrumental music and sometimes collaborating with different vocalists. It’s been pretty amazing to look back on the breadth of music I’ve made over the years and am excited to keep pushing musical boundaries and expectations!

You have a distinctive style compared to traditional synth-pop genres, what inspired your artistic direction?

I grew up in the 80’s fully immersed in synthpop like Depeche Mode, New Order, NIN, and Information Society. I loved the fusion of drum machines and electronics with unconventional pop songs, especially the darker melancholic ones. This drove me to get my own synths and gear and start composing music. I think it took 10 years before I created anything that I was remotely proud of. 

I’ve always been interested in many types of music. The concept that The Beatles' white album could be so diverse and unexpected I think had a profound effect on me. It’s been a driving force throughout my musical career to try new things, branch out into different genres, learn new instruments (like the Japanese koto), and constantly change my electronic gear toolkit, all with the purpose of creating an evolving, unconventional approach to songwriting.

With Symbion Project, I tend to make a more conventional synthpop album like Arcadian and then the next would be experimental and ambient. The only downside to having such diverse and different releases is that it’s been hard to create a hardcore fanbase who wants a specific genre over and over. So the fans I do have are also really adventurous and always interested in what I come up, regardless of genre.

Given your background, if you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be?

Wow, there are so so so many things that I’d like to see changed so that underground artists could focus on being creative and not be forced to do music solely as a hobby in the few spare hours they have. From a financial point of view, it would be amazing if there were more grants available for artists to take the pressure off as well as access to much cheaper health care.

It would also be much better if the giant media corps that run the music industry (Spotify, iTunes, etc...) paid better royalty rates and helped to promote more underground music. I also wish that playing shows was an easier endeavor. With no access to booking agents, I spend an exorbitant amount of time dealing with booking shows, getting paid, and driving around the country. It’d be great if there was a better infrastructure to help bands with setting up tours as it’s really still one of the best ways to build a fanbase.

Lastly, social media sites have placed so many barriers between bands and fans (boosted posts, ads, filtering algorithms) that it’s become too costly to use the sites to reach your existing fanbase, let alone reach new fans. FB and twitter were so great for many years, but in the past 5 it’s gotten worse and worse and I don’t feel comfortable giving those companies hundreds to thousands of dollars to reach new fans. 

Tell me about the beginning of the whole process. How much exploration and experimentation do you do before you know the path the music will take?

As most artists know, the beginning moments of making new music can be pretty scary. I have found this to be particularly true since each album usually is going to be a different experience rather than a simple continuation of a previous release. For me, one of the most important pieces is getting a general theme that the songs can be aligned with and choosing carefully the musical tools I'll use. For the album "Gishiki", I had been reading the short novel "Hagakure" and was doing a lot of reading about Japanese samurai culture. Musically I was enamored by the many pentatonic scales of Japanese music and so the 2 concepts aligned nicely. So I began composing an instrumental synthesizer album using Bushido and the pentatonic scales as a starting point. That gave me a solid frame of reference to begin composing and that framework also helped keep all the songs stylistically aligned throughout the long compositional process.

The choosing of what gear to use has always been a really important decision and these musical instruments really have such character and personalities that they immediately imprint themselves on what the music will become. The Rocococo album "Versailles" was completely programmed on a Gameboy DS-XL and so I had to work within the limitations of the Korg DSN-12 software. The software capabilities were so limited that I had to learn it inside and out to push it as far as it would go to be able to create something I was proud of. I'm often selling and getting new gear so that I'm constantly being exposed to new sounds and processes that I can incorporate and help define future songs.

What do you do outside music that contributes to rejuvenate your creativity?

I’m a huge film/tv series viewer and now that I’m focusing more on film composing, I’ll watch films solely to take in the score and learn more about that art form. I read a fair amount of books, mostly in the sci-fi genre but not always, and I listen to podcasts like This American Life. 

I’m a really visual person so I love finding great innovative artists on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. Many times I’ve found artists that way, reached out to them to share my respect of their art, and next thing I know they are letting me use their art for my album covers. The most recent Symbion Project release "Backscatter" features this amazing Japanese artist Tomoya Matsuura whose art I found randomly on Instagram. Probably the thing that helps me relax the most is taking naps with my 2 cats Hiro and Enzo (shoutout to Snowcrash!).

There are two types of people in this world. What are the two types?

Lovers and haters. I think buried deep inside all humans is the ability to both love and hate, but somewhere along the lines in our development and upbringing, we start to channel one over the other and it begins to define who we are. I think it’s all of our capacity to focus on all the facets of love, from creativity to acceptance to charity, and become more humbled, more enlightened. The world would be a pretty great place if we all just shed a bit of hate, ignorance, intolerance, and inequity.

Listen to Kasson Crooker's latest songs on Bandcamp.

 Symbion Project has been a constant musical outlet for me, sometimes creating solo instrumental music and sometimes collaborating with different vocalists.

Experiencing music with Kasson Crooker of Symbion Project

Hi Riku. How would you introduce yourself to people who don’t know you?

Hi there! I'm an audio geek, producer, soundscapist and studio technology enthusiast from Finland, operating on the left field of electronic music under the pseudonym Recue. 

I've been lucky to have released music for some interesting boundary-pushing labels, a bit sound design for TV and theatre, and do collaborations and remixes for inspiring artists. I'm currently preparing for the release of my next solo album.

Can you talk about the importance of good branding for the modern musician?

I'd say that now, at a time when there's more music available than ever and different social media services are the places where the majority of the interaction is done, it becomes more important to differentiate from others and have something that's purely your own, a brand if you will. Raising the bar from hopping on bandwagons and/or going just with the templates helps to avoid downing out in the noise. 

As romantic as the thought of good music being eventually found as long as it's available sounds, it might not be the case anymore, and that's where branding comes into play. Though it doesn't necessarily have to be anything too complicated and definitely not what the term branding means in the most commercial sense, especially if it means to artificially make up something that you're not. 

My personal preference is that it needs to be true to who you are and work around emphasizing that. Just something simple that makes you YOU.


Have you ever had the experience of not being able to come up with anything useful, how do you deal with that?

We've all been there! The easiest thing is to accept the fact that the more you create, the more you will end up with something that you don't like. No artist is able to create only fully polished gems and never end up with anything useless. Embrace that. Save those "useless" works anyway and you might realize later on that the thing you made a few months back actually has a nice beat, a little snippet of melody or a soundscape that's useful. Another option is that you never get back to it, and that's ok too. 

You might be making the mistake that you're comparing yourself to others, not realizing that you're only hearing the filtered output; the polished gems. You don't get to hear the folder of useless stuff that everyone has lying around. Just keep creating and enjoy the process.

Do you think that great composers are born or made?

Great composers, producers, writers, coders, photographers or football players are definitely made. There might be a hint of something that you're born with, whether it be a good ear for certain stuff or you're mathematically inclined or maybe you've just sparked an interest in something, and that's enough to get you digging deeper into whatever you're striving for. The rest is just hours put in.

What are some of today's most exciting changes in the electronic landscape?

Music technology-wise we're living a golden age of synthesizers at the moment. Manufacturers are releasing all sorts of inspiring tools left and right, whether your domain is analog, digital, modular or virtual. And the good thing is that all of this is happening in lots of different segments and price ranges. For example, if you're a beginner and getting into making music, it's a lot more accessible now than it's been for a long time and that's only a positive thing; anyone regardless of the thickness of your wallet or musical background should be able to pick up an instrument and start experimenting. That's how I got started as well. 

Music-wise I'm sensing a bit of scattering of genres at the moment. There are few dominant ones still absorbing people, but especially the underground is kind of dissolving by getting rid of the necessity to tag everything with a different micro-genre, and I like this direction as it stirs things up.

Which animals describe you the most and why?

Ha! I think I have to go with a capybara. Just look at those things! They just live a peaceful life hanging around with other animals, chilling and not having beef with everyone. I think that's a life goal worth having right there. Also shortlisted: quokka, meerkat, and otter.

Listen to the latest single of Riku Annala, Fathoms / Akrasia, on Bandcamp. 

I'm an audio geek, producer, soundscapist and studio technology enthusiast from Finland, operating on the left field of electronic music under the pseudonym Recue.

How to start out as a musician with Riku Annala of Recue

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Composing musical stories with Levi Patel

Experiencing music with Kasson Crooker of Symbion Project

How to start out as a musician with Riku Annala of Recue