Another month another live project for Lost Boy. This time a pair of Jack Daniel’s spots for IRIS. I think this was potentially our most challenging project yet, and it was all the more thrilling for that. With a very limited time frame and a brief that required a knife’s edge of precision. Fresh off the back of our Adidas compositon we once again worked directly with killer CD Jan Pruisjer as well as an excellent, hands-on production unit who made the whole process super seamless.

This was a set of films to accompany a collaboration between UK songwriter & composer Wesley Joseph and Jack Daniel’s. We were brought in to create a single piece of bespoke music to fit both films - the first half being a languid hip-hop backbeat to accompany Wesley’s lilting voice over, the second being a a high octane drum and bass track to score a follow up chase scene.

Unlike most of our other projects, in this case we weren’t brought in early as tastemakers to establish a solid brief. At the point at which we came in, the team had already worked closely with Wesley to create a playlist of references that he was comfortable with. These included titans like Flying Lotus, Sampha & Ocean Wisdom, to compliment Wesley’s own amazing work.

It’s great when you get a list of references so bullet proof that you have no further suggestions - this was also pretty lucky because the time scale was so tight. Since the references were so clear and had been agreed upon by Agency, Artist & Client, we decided to focus on making one piece of music and honing it with the creatives and the artist. One of the things that made this composition so interesting (and potentially daunting), is having the clear brief that this track had to be something that Wesley himself would be comfortable with releasing. We leaned on the creatives early on to help us find the perfect pace and tone for the ad, but essentially after that it all hinged on Wesley’s approval. 

We immediately set to work, first having to find a tempo that would work for the languid hip-hop section of the film and then, also, in double time for the liquid drum n bass part… Sounds way easier than it actually was. We knew once the first half of the track was sitting right, the DnB drop would come quite naturally. We then set about trying to replicate Wesley’s super-cool sonics. We drew big inspiration from jazz to hit those Flying Lotus references, and overlaid soulful James Blake-esque vocals to fit with his amazing track The Bloom - which was one of the key references from the team. Finally we overlaid a mellifluous piano part which we knew could form the foundation of a sick liquid DnB track.

We were a little nervous when we sent off the demo. It’s our standard practice to send a minimum of 6 tracks to any agency; and now we’d made one, with it’s sign off dependent on the will of one highly exacting creative. A couple of hours later Jan forwarded me a text from Wesley...

"...My one note would be to bring back the high vocals chops... At some point over the drop... They a vibe..."

"My one note”. Sick. We were absolutely chuffed with that… From someone who is releasing some of the coolest music around that was just about as high-praise as you could hope for. I loved the track we had made, but knowing how particular recording artists can be, I thought it could be anything from a total reimagining to a complete re-brief. This bit of good news also meant that we could slam straight into the second part of the song without undue delay.

Since we had only to double the tempo for the DnB section this came together super quickly. One of my producers made a heavy beat, very much in the Kidkanevil world. All the parts worked with the beat we made and that piano run up that undergourds the first part of the composition slotted in perfectly. We had the second composition back to Jan and the team a few hours after approval of the first track. Hear it below -

After living with the edit for a day the team did ask us to make the beat a little more pacy... If you’re interested, this doesn’t always mean making the track faster. Making a beat more densely populated, less linear or even more dynamic (making some things louder than others), can all give a track the feeling of being faster. Likewise, this can be done with a fast moving vocal or urgent sounding instrumental part - anything repetitive also seems to work. This is what they call perceived pace. We managed to make this change really quickly and got sign-off the same day.

Once again, we’re all absolutely delighted with the outcome. Another amazing project with Iris. This really is an agency committed to getting music right and we look forward to working together soon.

For all enquiries get me on the below

Luca Antoniazzi