We've just wrapped on a lovely little project for Ikea and Mother, London. Commissioned by our good friends upstairs at The Gin Factory, Soho Music Group, this project presented a unique musical challenge, as well as a speedy turnaround (of less than six hours)!

The client had sourced a lovely piece of music from composer Eric Coates entitled In The Sleepy Lagoon from 1930, which worked perfectly against the first half of the film, depicting a lion man, busy relaxing in his natural Ikea-filled habitat of the home. However, narratively, the second half sees a change in pace and feel as the lion springs into life as the heart and soul of a children's party and the Coates piece now felt squarely at odds with the fun, frantic upbeat nature of the visuals.

So we were tasked with creating a piece of music that flowed effortlessly out of In The Sleepy Lagoon so as to feel simply like a step change within the music, and not a separate piece at all. This would involve matching not only instrumentation and ensemble but also as importantly replicating the warm analogue sound of the original recording too, seamlessly.

This we did, by re-working the main melody, re-contextualising and it against a frenetic jazz swing and percussion base with a fast walking bassline, complete with new chordal accompaniment and harp flourishes. Mix-wise we then spent as much time as we had within the tight timing schedule EQ-matching and dialling in the exact detail in Mono, as per the Coates recording.

Following discussions with the creative team, it was decided that in fact the join made had been too seamless (!) and authentic and the second half would benefit from some additonal clarity and contrast fidelity-wise so as to help lift the playout, which a pseudo-sounding 1930 recording in Mono would never be able to achieve within the technical context of a broadcast ad. So we re-mixed and simplified some of the parts, brightening and adding a little punch and sheen as we went, and the resulting stereo spread in the second half provided the necessary lift and build the client was looking for.

A nice project all round...