By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow
Hello there! I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and I’m excited to announce the release of my most recent video game project – Spyder, developed by Sumo Digital for the popular Apple Arcade gaming platform. I loved working with the amazing audio team at Sumo Digital, and composing the music of Spyder was an absolute blast! As a retro spy thriller with a really iconic visual aesthetic, Spyder gave me the chance to delve into the 
musical styles of the late sixties and early seventies. Big band jazz of the 50s had evolved over time into a groovy psychedelic circus of 1960s musical fun. Mix this with the beginnings of 70s funk – and early synthetic sounds such as the famous Minimoog – and you end up with a potent cocktail of musical influences and attitudes. All of this retro goodness is reflected in the old-school movie-style poster created by the Sumo Digital team to announce the Spyder video game (pictured right).
The historical research into style, technique and instrumentation posed a significant challenge for me as a game music composer. In the course of preparing to compose the music for Spyder, I sank an enormous amount of time into this research, listening to what felt like every single spy movie soundtrack from the late sixties and early seventies. I also listened to tons of straight action movie soundtracks from the same era, as well as a great assortment of comedies, all while taking copious notes. Lending a strong sense of authenticity to the era was a crucial responsibility of the game music that would give Spyder its evocative character.