very original? dunno, it has those sublimely original 4x4 beats, juicy bassy basslines, hi-hats, snares, flanger sound-fx and the leads are mostly FM-synths. was it original to rely on an fm-synth for the majority of the album in the year 1999? debatable. he's certainly not the first to explore those (va - dementertainment (1998) springs to mind, for examle).
still i agree though, that as an album, "cryptic crunch" was highly original. production-wise it's about as original as either shpongle or androcell. whether or not it became a "genre" on it's own is debatable aswell, generic "dark psy" sounds heavily influenced by this album to my ears. still that doesn't stop me from calling producers of that genre artists aswell, 'coz music tends to go beyond productional values. imo.