Chatting Music, Ads and Flat Eric with Pitch & Sync’s New Berlin Head

Pitch & Sync, the music and sound agency with offices in London and Amsterdam, today announced the launch of an office in the German capital, Berlin. They’ve brought on board Ben Esser, a Berlin-based Brit with music running through his veins. In the past he’s collaborated with the likes of Mumdance and Lily Allen and began composing for ads in 2012. 

Ben chatted through his plans for this new venture with LBB’s Addison Capper. 

LBB> So what's your story? How did you come to work in music?

BE> Well I grew up making music from a young age. My dad was a music teacher and kind of played everything, so there were always instruments around. This progressed into playing drums in bands and for other artists, and then after doing that for a while I started writing and recording my own music. 

I've released my own records, collaborated and written songs for a whole bunch of people including Mumdance, Woodkid and Lily Allen. 

I started composing music specifically for adverts in 2012 and really loved the challenge of composing to a brief. As a ‘lone composer’ I had to juggle a lot of different roles - producing, budgeting, licensing, etc., so now I’m really utilising this knowledge in my new role at Pitch & Sync.

LBB> Tell us a bit about your musical history, do you see it helping with your role at Pitch & Sync?

BE> I spent a lot of hours as a teenager finding rare records, looking for samples, trying to find out who produced, recorded or played on my favourite tracks and this passion for music is something I feel is very much shared with the rest of the Pitch & Sync team.

From a composition perspective I understand what is required to turn an idea into music and this is going to be a fundamental part of my role at Pitch & Sync.

LBB> Why did you want to get onboard with Pitch & Sync?

BE> I knew Alex the co-founder back from the days when he was at Wall Of Sound, and as a composer I’d worked with them before and always loved their attitude and creative ethos.

LBB> How are you feeling about the new role and how do you see Pitch & Sync impacting the German market? 

BE> Pitch & Sync are able to produce consistently great work, whether that’s composing to brief or sourcing and licensing the perfect tracks. There are some really amazing UK artists, composers and musicians that they’ve built up relationships with over the last 10 years and from speaking to people here it seems there is a real appetite for this quality of musical craft in the German market.

LBB> What are you listening to right now that we should know about?

BE> KOKOKO! have been a recent favourite of mine. The new Actress record ‘AZD’ is great. And having booked the Hot 8 Brass Band to perform a surprise ditty pre the Ciclope Festival, they’ve now become a go-to for me to get the vibes going.

In London the team are non stop on Baxter Dury’s new album ‘Prince of Tears’ and loving Dunia’s album ‘Re:instrospection’.  

LBB> What’s been your favourite recent piece of work from Pitch & Sync?

BE> I think the Mo Farah ‘Smile’ spot for Nike which the team in London worked on was beautifully composed with an amazing vocal by George the Poet.

LBB> If you could have music supervised any ad in history, which would it be? 

BE> Levi’s, Sta-Prest - ‘Flat Eric’