ANDØLD began, somewhat appropriately, with a writing session where almost nothing worth keeping was actually written. What survived instead was a friendship between three artists with years of experience across production, songwriting and the wider music industry, followed by ADE, a few beers and a series of writing trips that eventually turned into a proper project.
Their debut single, ‘Dive’, is the first result to make it out into the world, sitting somewhere between deep and progressive house, indie dance and pop, with a raw unison vocal that came from deliberately resisting the temptation to polish everything within an inch of its life. It also launches their own ØBSCURE RECORDS, where the trio are putting some of those years spent inside the industry to practical use, including giving every songwriter master points.
With two more singles already lined up, Magnetic caught up with ANDØLD to talk about happy accidents, creative arguments, knowing when to dismantle a perfectly good demo, the pull between hope and melancholy, and why sometimes knowing how the music industry works is as much a hindrance as a help.
ANDØLD has been years in the making, but the starting point was apparently a writing session where you made virtually nothing worth keeping. What was it about each other that made you think, “the music didn’t work, but we should definitely do this again”?
This session was a typical too many chefs in the kitchen type of situation. We were three producers and one songwriter. Every 30 minutes, the producer would take the main seat and the song would switch genre completely. Matilda must have written ten songs haha. At some point I sat next to her and we just chatted, laughing about this completely absurd situation and grabbed a drink instead. She mentioned that her friend Andreas was coming to Amsterdam for ADE and needed a place to stay. Fast forward a few weeks and he was on my doorstep armed with beers and a big smile. We hit it off instantly and the three of us hung out during the whole ADE week, kickstarting what would evolve into multiple music trips every year together.
You’ve all spent a long time making music professionally, whether as artists, producers or songwriters. Does that experience make starting ANDØLD easier, or does knowing too much about how the industry works sometimes get in the way?
It’s probably a bit of both. We’ve definitely made our fair share of mistakes, gone down the wrong paths and learned a lot of things the hard way. That makes some parts of starting ANDØLD easier. We know what we want, but probably even more importantly, we know what we don’t want. The downside is that experience can make you overthink things. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to forget about the industry for a second and just make something because it feels good. I think we’re getting pretty good at finding that balance.
Dive pulls from deep house, progressive, indie dance and pop without sitting particularly comfortably in any of them. When you’re working together, do you actually talk about genre, or are those descriptions something that tend to arrive once the record is finished?
The latter, definitely! When we made our first track, we actually didn’t talk about genre at all. There was something almost magical about how naturally it all happened. We all come from slightly different musical backgrounds, so I think those influences just found their way into the song without us consciously trying to blend anything. We were just having fun and trying to make a song that we all loved. We’ve always followed genres and tried to stay on top of them throughout our careers, but I think at some point we realised that music is music, and good music is good music. With ANDØLD, we’ve found a way to just let our creative instincts lead the way.
Matilda and Marlene recorded the vocal together, singing in unison into the same microphone, largely in single takes. That’s quite an unusual decision in an era when vocals can be endlessly comped and perfected. How did that session happen, and what did the imperfections give you that a cleaner recording wouldn’t have?
It was a very in-the-moment decision. We were writing the topline and only had two or three lines when Marlene and I sang the idea together, just to get that raw, chanty Nordic feel across. The boys reacted so strongly that it caught us all a little off guard, there was something about our voices together that just worked. So we decided to make a bit of a challenge out of it and record the vocal side by side into the same mic. It gave the whole thing an energy that we knew we’d lose if we started picking it apart and trying to make it perfect. We just wanted to keep the feeling of that first moment.
There’s a point with Dive where it could equally make sense alone on headphones or as the last record played to a room at 5am. Were you consciously trying to find that space between something inward-looking and something that still works collectively?
We absolutely love that question because we want our music to accompany you wherever you go. I think that’s also quite hard to orchestrate, so we’re really happy that Dive seems to have found that balance. It wasn’t something we set out to achieve, we just made something that felt right to us.
Andreas has talked about challenging “the usual way” of making records. Between three people with strong ideas and plenty of studio experience, what does an ANDØLD session actually look like? Who tends to disrupt things when a track starts becoming a little too comfortable?
With the three of us in the room we showcase the demos we have made over the last weeks/months. We rarely take someone’s whole idea and continue from there. We find a demo and bit by bit remove all the layers until we are left with the best bit. The core of the song which will pave the way for a new ANDØLD song. What is great in our sessions is that we push each other way further than you would do on your own. We do not want to settle for anything less than a song that makes us feel ecstatic. We could spend forever on the same loop playing chord variations until that one specific one stands out. Same goes for lyrics or vocals.
There’s quite a lot of melancholy in Dive, but it doesn’t feel particularly bleak. Is that tension between darker emotions and optimism something you see becoming part of ANDØLD’s identity, or is it simply where these first records happened to land?
We love being somewhere between hope and melancholy, and we’re pretty sure we’ll stay in that lane. There’s something about that mix that just makes you feel alive. Dive has this romantic but slightly destructive feel to it that we really love, and hopefully other people can relate to that too.
You’ve also chosen to launch ØBSCURE RECORDS yourselves rather than take ANDØLD to an established label. Given that you’ve collectively seen the industry from the artist, songwriting, production and A&R sides, what did you want to do differently when you finally had your own label?
One thing we definitely want to do differently is to take better care of the songwriters. We’ve spent a huge part of our careers on that side of the industry ourselves, so we know how important writers are to a record and how often their contribution isn’t reflected in the master. We’ve always applauded writers like RAYE and Justin Tranter who have been vocal about pushing for change, and it is important for us to follow that example. With ØBSCURE, every songwriter gets master points. It was one of those things we knew from the beginning that we wanted to do.
You’ve got three singles forming the introduction to ANDØLD. Once people have heard all three, what do you hope they understand about the project that Dive only hints at?
One thing that is so special about these three tracks is that we get goosebumps every single time the chorus hits. It’s insane, and we really hope that will transfer to the listeners. The tracks all share that anthemic and big feeling, there’s always a sense of hope, but also some darkness underneath. We want the music to hit you and make you feel something. Dive introduces one side of that, but hopefully after hearing all three, people will start to recognise that feeling as something that belongs to ANDØLD.
DIVE is out now on ØBSCURE RECORDS
