We work out what that meaning can do for your brand. Then we put it to work: original music, re-recordings, sound logos and syncs.
Got an idea? Tell him. He'll tell you what the music can mean.
Music for brands has a licence term, and some of ours have run out.
“Premium has its shape.” An original score for the launch film, no voice-over, delivered with stems and four sound-logo options.
Not a car, so no car song. We built three imaginary DJ sets for the people Lynk & Co wanted to reach. Moondog's “Bird's Lament” won: a 1960s outsider, pushing music the way the brand pushes mobility. It carried 40+ films.
Music research and the sync: Nappy Roots, “Good Day”.
On air now. The second year of “Good Day” for ASN Bank, in a new film.
Music clearance for the film and its trailer.
A hundred years of a university in sixty seconds. We found the music and built the soundtrack and the sound design.
In Belgium, Cécémel became Chocomel. A name change without regrets, so: “Non, je ne regrette rien”, in a recording by Géraldine Olivier. We found it and cleared both sides.
We found the idea in a hundred years of music and machines, and every composer worked from it. Read liner note No. 1.
“Ich bin wie du” became “Net als jij”, sung by Wes & Wes for the Euros. It came out as a single too.
David Bowie's “Heroes” as a cover, cleared with the Bowie estate.
The Andrews Sisters, re-recorded with more low end and more punch.
An OM chant mixed with engines and tyres: the moment driver and machine become one.
Also for Diesel, Mercedes and Schweppes, with agencies like W+K, Fred & Farid and Publicis.
we don't talk about music when we talk about music. We talk about what it means. Three short ones.
Lenovo makes everything from laptops to doorbells, and a brand that broad needs one idea to hold it together. So we followed a hundred years of music and machines: the microphone that made crooning possible, Kraftwerk and Devo asking what is left of the human, Daft Punk's robot rock. Out came one idea, the Renaissance Man-Machine: human and tech, as one. Every composer worked from that brief.
At Coachella 2018 Beyoncé brought a marching band, steppers and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to a desert festival. That is homecoming at America's historically Black colleges, more than a century of tradition. The show hit so hard because the meaning was already in the music. That is the part we look for first.
Three people take a bite and start to dance. To what? There is no music in the room. They dance to a feeling. So we gave the agency three directions: silence, as John Cage did it; the sound of the body; or the drop, the moment your brain makes the music. They took the drop.
Marcel writes more of these in his newsletter. Read it on Substack.
Marcel's talk for agency and brand teams. Why “upbeat but emotional” goes nowhere, and what to say instead. With examples from John Cage to the drop.
Before music becomes a craft, music should be a creative strategy.
Every note and every beat carries meaning inside a culture. We find the meaning that fits your brand.
We turn that meaning into a music brief your client, the agency and the composer can agree on.
Then we make it: an original composition, a re-recording, a sound logo or a sync.
We met as teenagers in a hardcore band and later played in Oil: Marcel on drums, Nicholas on vocals. Then Sizzer, where Marcel became strategy director and partner, and Nicholas managing director. Howl since 2021.
Part of the Ringo group, next door to Charlie, Sync Valuations and TrackShield.