"We make Real Records for Media. Music produced with the same attention to detail as records we’ve produced for major label artists and feature films film soundtracks"

This week, we caught up with Executive Producer Dann Liebermann and Partner/Creative Director Andy Carroll from The Elements Music about the new generation of music creators following the Covid pandemic and how important supporting emerging talent is.

With an established background in major-label record production, The Elements Music is a full-service music company that creates and curates music for the biggest brands in the world including Apple, Nike, TikTok and Samsung (...to name a few).

The company recently announced its Custom Sound Partnership with TikTok - a huge acclaim as they sit as one of only three companies globally.

The success to date of this partnership is highly due to their ‘Real Records’ approach and collaboration with real artists to produce record quality tracks that are made with the same attention to detail as a record for a major label artist or feature film. Hailed as ‘Mini Records’ - these shorter clips speak to shorter TikTok hashtag brand challenges and activations that have boomed over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Andy notes: “It was at this time that we recognised how important it was to go back to our record label roots and lean in. You cannot fake authenticity, no one buys it. We were then able to be ourselves so the creativity has never been more fun as a result.”

Their recent activation for US cleaning brand Clorox Scentiva proves this. The TikTok video featuring actor, activist and fashion legend Billy Porter racked up a whopping 11.4 billion views (and counting), which makes it one of the most-watched brand content videos ever made.

The same success can be said for The Elements who have doubled in size during the course of the pandemic. They now boast an in-house A+R division, responsible for talent-scouting and overseeing artistic development of new names to the industry and are proud to have recruited many of the new team from renowned music school, Icon Collective based in LA. In addition, they onboarded heavyweight Nick Maker, previously Music Producer at BBDO Chicago, to expand their Music Supervision department.

Despite significant growth, they have continued to give back and support various initiatives and projects across the industry, including the ‘Create Not Hate’ programme set up by Trevor Robinson OBE which aims to combat systemic racism and get underrepresented young people into the creative industries.

Dann commented: “Last year, I had the honour of being on the The British Arrows Craft July for Music and Sound. It was great judging such exceptional creative work and hugely enjoyable to meet fellow music producers.. It was through this time we were asked to produce the track for the shows ‘Made in Lockdown’ category. We worked with 16yr Jaiden from the ‘Create Not Hate’ programme, who wrote and performed a spoken word poem about lockdown over a track Andy produced. Jaiden was invited to attend the ceremony It was great to give him the opportunity alongside the British Arrows.”

This year, The Elements Music will have a special role in bringing the live award show to life. To celebrate the industry reuniting, along with the refreshed format - the team will be composing the music that will be performed live by an orchestra throughout the evening.

Alongside all of their core work and community support, they managed to find time to spread a little joy over lockdown by launching Isolation Radio Station, a collection of playlists from friends in music for media. It started small but soon went ‘viral’ and ended up incorporating almost all of the biggest names in Music Supervision globally including Google, Disney, Sony, VICE and Universal.

Andy adds: “Last year was a lot of fun for us creatively, we had a chance to spread our wings a little and we’re really proud to be sponsoring British Arrows for the second year…”

It's evident from our catch up that The Elements team is a well-oiled machine, but also as a family. They work extremely closely together with a streamlined approach that allows for excellent service, expertise and experience which makes for an exceptionally high output - and yet they always can find time to bond over their weekly quiz night. Impressive.