Cutting through the noise: Aleah Morrison-Basu

Like 20/20 vision for a pilot, or steady hands for a surgeon, if there’s one physical trait that’s non-negotiable for a sound designer and composer, you’d think it was perfect hearing. 

 I just had to imagine what I’d want it to sound like, then looked at all the different levels on the mixer.

But Aleah Morrison-Basu has carved out a successful career as a composer, music producer and co-founder of award-winning music design studio Zelig Sound – creating earworms for some of the world’s biggest brands across the entertainment, broadcasting, fashion, sport and transport sectors – and she’s done it all while being deaf in one ear.

“I don’t know any differently,” Morrison-Basu says philosophically of her hearing impairment, which was discovered when she was a child. “I guess it did bother me, but I didn't realise what was bothering me.” It certainly didn’t affect her early musical prowess: she started playing the piano aged five, followed by the clarinet and the cello. “I’d done all my grade eight [exams] by the time I was 17,” she says. “Then the question was: what do I do now?” 

Above: Zelig Sound created Amazon Prime's sonic logo, The Ripple. 

The answer was a degree in music technology at Keele University in Staffordshire which was, at the time, one of only five such courses in the UK. As well as being the sole woman in her class, she also had to grapple with the challenges of sound mixing, which she taught herself to do visually. “We had to compose a piece and do a 12-speaker performance of it; and obviously I couldn’t hear half of it. I just had to imagine what I’d want it to sound like, then looked at all the different levels on the mixer and tried to recreate what I’d imagined.” 

The descriptions of the sonic ‘personalities’ on Zelig’s website read like tasting notes for a fine wine.  

After graduation, Morrison-Basu went on to teach music at school and degree level, via a stint as a radio presenter for Rock FM. The decision to set up a music design studio in 2010 with her then-boyfriend, Matthew Wilcock, was “really organic” – she was writing music for her master’s degree programme in music composition while lecturing part-time, while he was working as a sound designer. Their first project was creating a soundscape for the Chopin Museum in Warsaw, followed by sound design for the 2010 BAFTAs.  

Since then, Zelig has evolved into an eight-person-strong studio offering everything from original music composition to VR audio development and music supervision for commercials – with a particular focus on sonic branding. As the more sophisticated cousin of the company jingle, a strong sonic identity is a powerful boost to brand memorability – think of Netflix’s “da-dum”, or McDonald’s cheery whistle – how do you create something that cuts through the noise and, most importantly, doesn’t sound like anything else?

Above: Zelig's sonic branding for Eurostar trains, The Spark, aimed for a tone that conveyed "a hint of luxury but approachable”. 

Crafting the sound of a brand certainly feels like more of an art than a science. The descriptions of the sonic ‘personalities’ on Zelig’s website read like tasting notes for a fine wine – or the blurb on a luxury fragrance. The sonic logo they created for Prime Video, The Ripple, is “rich, vibrant, deep, moving and celebratory”, while Eurostar’s The Spark is “fast, light, a hint of luxury but approachable”. And just like wine or scent, music and sound is hugely subjective – which requires a more conceptual approach, explains Morrison-Basu.

“We take what the client tells us about their brand and then we try and translate that into music. We give them loads of examples at the beginning – from 40 upwards – then we refine it based on what it is [the client] likes within those examples.” It’s a lengthy process that starts with defining the brief, followed by research, creative development, refinement and mixing – but in the end, says Morrison-Basu, “it does come down to personal taste”. People generally divide into two camps: “Intuitively, you either have a draw to melody and harmony, or a draw to rhythm. I think I’m more melodic, and Matt’s more rhythmic – although I’m not sure he’d characterise himself that way!”

We feel it’s very important to ensure a cohesive sound behind it all.

When you’re dealing with a brand with almost 100 years of history and multiple stakeholders’ opinions to integrate, things get even more complicated. One of Zelig’s biggest projects to date has been creating a voice for the BBC ‘masterbrand’ – including a sting to sit at the front end of all video and audio content. Morrison-Basu and the team had to balance the BBC’s uniquely British heritage with its international status as a worldwide news and entertainment institution: “It had to feel ‘English’, but also global.” 

There was also the Beeb’s own rich sonic history, including the iconic radio ‘pips’, aka the Greenwich Time Signal, to consider and draw inspiration from. Eventually, they came up with a three-part sonic, which reflects the three syllables of the name and the three ‘blocks’ in the BBC logo, which features complete a unique “glissando” (or rapidly executed series of notes, in layman’s terms) to mirror the elastic fluidity of both the visual elements and the BBC’s general identity.

Above: For the BBC masterbrand sonic logo, Zelig was tasked with creating a uniquely British but also global feel. 

By contrast, for another client in the entertainment space, Amazon’s Prime Video, Zelig took a very different tack – creating a ‘flourish of entertainment’ with an arrangement of marimba (a type of xylophone), synthesisers, piano and sound design to echo the rippling effect of the graphics. Although The Ripple already sounds familiar, it’s still a way off Netflix’s ‘da-dum’-you’d probably struggle to name the brand based on the audio alone – but over time, Morrison-Basu hopes it will become as recognisable as the Amazon ‘smile’. 

At the moment more ‘organic’ sound elements are in vogue, whereas 10 years ago everyone wanted something techy, something that sounded like the Tron soundtrack.
Sonic identities often need to work across multiple platforms: The Spark, which Zelig created for Eurostar, features on traditional brand comms – TV, radio and online – but also on station announcements and on the trains themselves. Increasingly, Zelig are staying on projects as music consultants where a sonic expands into an entire brand soundscape, from music on 30-second commercials, to background music in a shop, haptics and UI: “We feel it’s very important to ensure a cohesive sound behind it all.”  

We approached it like a sound installation…what should the future of London sound like?

Beyond cohesiveness and ‘stickiness’, what else are brands looking for in their sonics? At the moment, says Morrison-Basu, more ‘organic’ sound elements are in vogue, whereas 10 years ago, “everyone wanted something techy, something that sounded like the Tron soundtrack.” Popular films’ soundtracks - the latest Wes Anderson or a Hans Zimmer-scored movie, for example – do tend to influence briefs, as well as ASMR. Ultimately, though, “we have a certain sound and a certain style, and people will come to us if they want something done in a certain way.”

Trends in sound are just one of the changes Morrison-Basu has witnessed over her 14 years in the business; there’s also been a welcome gender shift in what was once a heavily male-dominated industry, with female composers also breaking out of the once-stereotypical “orchestral or traditional instrumental, Downton Abbey type scores” and moving into “techie” sound design.