The Art of Listening

This multi-channel brand awareness campaign for Danish speaker brand Dynaudio explores the personal relationship between sound and creativity through the stories of three distinct voices: London-based fashion designer Nicholas Daley, Berlin techno pioneer Alexandra Dröner, and Copenhagen sound anthropologist Holger Schulze. Shot in their cities, studios, and homes, we developed unique listener profiles with seamless product integration. As the managing editor, I sourced the talents, crafted their storylines, wrote Nicholas’ profile, supported production efforts, and oversaw the commissioning and editing of the other profiles. The campaign was published across web, paid media, social channels, and featured in Friends of Friends magazine.

London, UK

Sound And Style

Nicholas Daley simply doesn’t want to work in a world without music. From Shabaka Hutchings’ eloquent, saxophone-heavy tunes and his stars-of-the-21st-Century jazz group Sons of Kemet, to Culture’s grassroots reggae masterpiece Two Sevens Clash – and beyond – his is a world where proper fashion needs proper sounds… and vice versa.

We’re talking in his North London studio. One side of the room is lined with racks of clothes – some from previous collections and some were sworn to secrecy about – and the other is lined with cases of records. “There’s so much mental stimulus through playing vinyl,” he says, flipping through a box and picking one by Alice Coltrane. He’ll return to those boxes a lot during our day together. Read on Dynaudio

There’s something about the calm, self-aware way menswear designer Nicholas Daley steps into a room.

Music permeates the space of Nicholas Daley’s studio based in the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in North London: From Shabaka Hutchings’ eloquent, saxophone-heavy tunes and his jazz group Sons of Kemet, a line-up that comprises some of the most progressive 21st-century talents in British jazz, to Culture’s Two Sevens Clash, an instrumental album to Jamaica’s grassroots reggae movement. Whatever spectrum Daley delves in, music puts him in the right frame of mind. “There’s so much mental stimulus through playing vinyl,” he says, flipping through a box of records, picking one by Alice Coltrane.

Daley graduated with a BA in Fashion Design from London’s Central Saint Martins in 2013. Since then, he has designed forward-looking, fresh menswear that thrives on eclecticism, marrying cultural symbolism with pragmatic wearability. Ever keen to propel the fusion of music and fashion, while also exploring fashion and heritage, he is inspired by his British-Jamaican roots. Daley’s mother is Scottish, his father of Jamaican descent. Together, they ran Scotland’s first reggae club in Edinburgh in the 1970s. Read on Friends of Friends

Berlin, Germany

Spatial Awareness With DJ Alexandra Dröner

Alexandra Dröner is lost in the thudding, pulsating beat of electronic grime music. Her movements are raw and unfiltered, and the music is intense – but we aren’t in a sweaty club surrounded by drunk dancers at 2am. We’re in her airy Berlin loft apartment surrounded by refined furniture. And it’s 2pm.

Here, in her personal space, the stereo is the focal point: "It’s a temple to me, a wonderful music shrine. I want to be able to sit down or stand in the most ideal position possible and listen to music. For me, that’s how music should be experienced at home – as a singular experience and not as background noise."

Alexandra got her musical education in the legendary Berlin club scene of the nineties and noughties. She moved to Berlin as a young student in the late ’80s and started working at the bar Fischlabor before joining the club Tresor as managing director. Later, she took on the booking at the techno club E-Werk and worked the door at various other clubs before returning to Tresor, where she took over the booking.

The scene’s techno genesis is told extensively in the excellent book Klang der Familie – and Alexandra appears repeatedly in this and other narratives. It was an era of pioneers, discovering uncharted territory, and the emergence of DJing as a new art form. It was about new spaces and raw, physical sound. Read on Dynaudio

Copenhagen, Denmark

The Art of Noise With Sound Anthropologist Holger Schulze

For a sound anthropologist, the art of listening is just as much a part of daily life as stimulating conversation and a healthy curiosity about the world around him. If listening is a revolutionary act, the approach is a rather relaxed one. It can start anywhere, at any time—at Il Buco, a restaurant in Copenhagen’s Islands Brygge neighbourhood, for example. It’s eight thirty in the morning, The Beatles song Come Together is playing faintly in the background.

Holger Schulze is sitting at the window with a book. While reading, he focuses on the sound environment and, looking up, says, “there are five loud sound sources here. The music, the woman who is currently Skype-ing, the man with the husky voice having a conversation, the kitchen clatter and people paying.” Pointing out that there are, in fact, two couples talking a bit more quietly and some are sitting wearing headphones, Schulze calls them “wellsprings of silence.” Read on Dynaudio