Douze and Lo Galbo – a French / Dutch producer collaboration – have released ‘Dawn’ the original motion picture soundtrack to their own film concept. The project aims to create an authentic, retro soundtrack designed to spark nostalgic memories of a movie that never existed. The producers focused on emotive music, specific to different scenes, guiding each listener to imagine their own unique celluloid version of ‘Dawn’. Written and produced almost entirely outside the box on original 80’s analogue hardware, this album is about the music and its ability to become a catalyst for imagination.
L.O.V.E. Ltd label boss Douze is a long-time collaborator with renowned producers Kris Menace and Alan Braxe. He has released on Work It Baby, Discotexas, Animal Language, Computer Science, NRW, Toolroom and more. Lo Galbo is one of many alter-egos from the producer co-responsible for underground French touch hit ‘Searching’ by WebQueawry, ‘The Music We Play’ by We Play, and various ambient and experimental synthwave projects. The two producers first met in 2008 on the early music / social platform MySpace, before Kris Menace brought them together to work on a Douze remix of a WebQueawry track on his Work It Baby label. The pair clicked in the studio and began working on demos with their collab ‘We Got The Love’ securing a release on Hed Kandi. They reconnected in 2021 for their ‘Drums Allowed’ project and began to crystallise the idea of ‘Dawn’.
To create a film score for a fictional 80’s movie, the duo immersed themselves in soundtracks of the time to understand the process and sounds (they quote early 80’s soundtracks from Tangerine Dream and Giorgio Moroder as examples of how real songs were interspersed with other more introspective interludes) before outlining a short synopsis of ‘Dawn’ and the main scenes that might exist in the film. Using keywords as a guide they began creating music to breathe life into the story and emotions of each scene.
The authenticity of the sound is paramount to this project. To deliver this Douze and Lo Galbo sketched out demos in the box then rented a studio full of analogue gear to add to their own, and bring the demos alive. They sampled drums on Lo Galbo’s Akai X-7000 sampler and used his original Tascam Porta One 4-track cassette recorder for some takes. This brought some warmth to the takes and a character that plug-ins cannot recreate.
The Linndrum drum machine was central to creating the genuine 80’s sound with other equipment featured including the Moog Minimoog, Roland Juno-60, Oberheim OB-Xa, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, and the Roland SH-2.
Musically ‘Dawn – the original motion picture soundtrack’ delivers on its concept. From the lush awakening of the title track to the darker undertones of ‘Cheerleading Warm Up’ suggesting trouble to come, to the pulsating synths and teenage emotions of ‘Passion’, through to the dark, rebellious guitar riffs of ‘The Fallen Outlaw Part 1 (The Wrong Crowd)’, there is the sense that Dawn’s typical teen life is precarious. Her journey through struggles with powerful new emotions is easy to imagine in the descending, helpless chords of ‘Dawn Falling’ the uncertain innocence of ‘Dear Diary’, and the heart-racing, dangerous arpeggios in ‘The Fallen Outlaw Part 2 (Chased)’. The listener creates their own story as the downtempo warmth of ‘In The Shadows’ sees self-doubt articulated by guest vocalist Yota, while the hopeful chimes of ‘Redemption In Disguise’ tease a resolution before the album concludes with the emotive and uplifting ‘End Titles (One Last Ride)’.
For each listener, the music will evoke different images but across 16 quality tracks, Douze and Lo Galbo connect with real emotion and Dawn’s journey comes to life.
‘Dawn’ is available from Bandcamp and linktree as a digital or limited edition vinyl album, and across all major streaming platforms from 27th November.
Douze
https://linktr.ee/arnaultdouze
https://linktr.ee/l.o.v.e.ltd
https://instagram.com/arnaultdouze
https://soundcloud.com/arnaultdouze
https://twitter.com/arnaultdouze
https://facebook.com/arnaultdouze
Lo Galbo
https://linktr.ee/logalbo
https://instagram.com/logalbowib
https://soundcloud.com/logalbo
