ANDØLD‘s debut single Dive pairs the pulse of progressive house with pop songwriting that makes room for melancholy.
Swedish singers Matilda Thompson and Marlene Strand recorded their vocals together into one microphone, giving the track a raw, unified voice.
Dive is also the first release on ØBSCURE RECORDS, the independent label founded by Thompson and bandmates Harold van Lennep and Andreas Ahrnberg.
The trio first met at an Amsterdam writing session in 2018; years of collaboration eventually led them to keep their songs and launch the project themselves.
In this FM PRO 10Q, ANDØLD discuss the recording choices behind Dive, why it became their introduction, and how they plan to use their Stockholm studios and industry network to support artists beyond their own releases.
We want people to associate ANDØLD with their most emotional moments in life. Whether you are on the dance floor at 3AM or taking a walk by yourself in the woods.
Q1. What made Dive the right track to introduce ANDØLD to the world?
Dive has this melancholic yet hopeful and romantic touch to it. We wrote it on the coast in Portugal and we loved the idea of starting with a track that still carries a bit of summer with it. The lyrics resonate so nicely. Our upcoming tracks are also more centered towards a certain emotion so this gives us a broader path to walk on moving forward.
Q2. How did you balance deep and progressive house with indie dance and pop songwriting?
We are a melting pot of different genres so it was quite amazing when this sound so naturally came together at a writing camp in Bruges. Production-wise, we wanted to stick to the “old” house recipe but still bring all of our pop and indie dance experience into the topline and songwriting.
It basically became a hybrid of progressive house, indie dance and pop, both in the songwriting and arrangement. We feel like we’ve managed to create a sound that makes us want to copy ourselves. And that is a great feeling.
Q3. Matilda and Marlene recorded their vocals in unison into the same microphone. What inspired that approach, and how did it shape the track?
From a producer’s perspective it blew our minds first hearing this. Matilda and Marlene sing super tight together and have never had a reason to sing something twice unless it was dubs or a lot of laughs haha.
I think it was one of them saying “let’s just go together” instead of doing it separately and they thought it would be a fun challenge. It really gave that extra raw feel to it and a chanty folk nordic vibe that we all fell in love with.
Q4. Dive moves between melancholy and optimism. How did you translate that emotional tension into the production?
We’ve heard a lot of people saying “keep the beat going” “don’t step away from the kick going into 2nd verse or you’ll lose the dance floor”. There’s definitely something to it, but when you work in pop you really need to find those dynamic moments where the song basically starts all over again.
With Dive, the verses needed space for the vocals and the more melancholic side of the song to come through, so we stripped things back and let them breathe. Then, when the beat and energy return, it creates this sense of release and optimism as you say.
Q5. You first connected during an Amsterdam writing session in 2018. When did you realise that friendship could become a serious creative project?
After Amsterdam we gradually started to hang out more and quickly realised that we shared the same excitement for bringing people together. We started to organise writing camps in Belgium, Italy and Sweden and it was so seamless to work together. We created amazing memories with talented friends while making great music.
We made tons of tracks during those years but we never really forced the idea of becoming a project ourselves. We all went down different paths, gaining experience in different areas of the industry. It was when we made the third track in this same style together with Marlene, that the idea really started to grow.
We gained a lot of interest when pitching the songs, but pretty quickly realised that we didn’t want to give them away. From there it all kind of snowballed into ANDØLD and ØBSCURE RECORDS.
Q6. Each member brings experience from a different corner of the music industry. How do you divide creative roles without losing a shared identity?
We do not divide roles but we know each other so well that everything kind of just falls into place. We all have our input and say in everything that happens with the track.
Given that we are so close, there are absolutely no hard feelings or frustrations when giving feedback on certain parts. So far we seem to have the same vision for where a track should go.
We constantly show each other ideas and sometimes a brand new track can come from a tiny sound that one of us heard in the demo of the other. It’s a bit like crate digging but in your own basement!
Q7. What does the name ANDØLD represent, and what do you want listeners to associate with it?
We initially just played around with our names, so ANDØLD is actually a combination of all three of our first names. It might sound a bit cliché, but it just stuck. For us, ANDØLD represents years of making very different kinds of music that eventually came together in one project.
The “Ø” is a nod to the Nordic languages and the strong Swedish influence. Two of us are Swedish, but beyond that, Swedish music culture has shaped all three of us over the past 20 years.
We want people to associate ANDØLD with their most emotional moments in life. Whether you are on the dance floor at 3AM or taking a walk by yourself in the woods.
Q8. Where does Dive sit within the wider sound and direction you are developing together?
We believe that Dive is a good introduction to where our sound is right now. It was officially the 3rd finished single but the other tracks feel like chapters further down the line rather than the starting point.
We want to take people on a journey rather than a stationary sound. We explore and give listeners good music, not just the same experience in different masks. A track that now looks to be the 4th single is already out of the usual bpm and feeling.
FM PRO TECH Q9. Why was launching ØBSCURE RECORDS independently important, rather than releasing ANDØLD through an established label?
When you start out in the music industry you usually think that signing with an established record label is the ultimate goal and the way to kickstart your career. In all fairness it also usually is, But the further you get in your career, you gain experience and have a clearer knowledge of what you want.
We wanted to shape this our way, be able to own the successes and the failures. It’s so exciting to know that what comes out of this is our doing and It makes you work even harder.
FM PRO TECH Q10. With experience across production, songwriting, A&R and artist development, what infrastructure are you building to help ØBSCURE grow beyond your own releases?
The way we see the label supporting rising artists comes quite naturally from our combined experience. We’ve been in the music industry long enough to know what we want from a label, and what we don’t. We also all started on the creative side, which we think really helps when it comes to understanding and supporting an artist.
We already have a studio complex in Stockholm with five studios and an international network of writers, producers, managers and publishers that allows us to put together sessions, organise writing camps and make the right connections. So a lot of the infrastructure is already there, ØBSCURE gives us a way to bring those pieces together.
We’re straight shooters and don’t promise anything we can’t deliver. We give master points to writers to set an example we think more labels should follow, and if we work with an artist, it’s because we genuinely love the music and know we can actually help.
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