SHARING THE FUTURE CINEMATIC SOUND WITH THE WORLD
Over the past decade, through our work across film, television, advertising and games globally with companies such as Disney, Paramount, Riot Games and Spotify, we have been building a growing library of recordings, textures and performances that we’ve accumulated through real briefs on real projects, as well as through our own creative exploration as a studio.
Together, they have helped shape what we call our Future Cinematic Sound. This is an approach, not a genre or formula. It is what has come out of our efforts to stop trying to sound like everyone else and start drawing from Africa as a source to create something completely unique. African music is the root of most of what the world listens to. The rhythms, instruments, voices and creative philosophies of this continent run deep, and we have spent a decade learning how to bring that depth into contemporary cinematic work without flattening it.
The result is music that feels both familiar and foreign at the same time. Both authentic and contemporary, raw and produced. This contrast is intentional, it is what makes it ours.
What started as an internal resource has now reached a point where it feels ready to be shared with the world, because we are dedicated to amplifying Africa’s authentic voice on the global stage.
AUTHENTIC AFRICAN SAMPLE PACKS, NOW ON LOOPCLOUD AND LOOPMASTERS
That is what has led to the launch of our first sample packs in partnership with Loopcloud and Loopmasters.
Loopmasters has long been one of the world’s leading platforms for producers searching for high quality, production ready sounds across every genre imaginable. Founded by musicians, for musicians, they have spent nearly 25 years building a catalogue of more than four million royalty-free sounds and a reputation for giving artists a trusted and respectful platform to share their work with the world. Alongside Loopmasters, their Loopcloud platform brings that same library directly into producers’ DAWs, making it one of the most integrated music production ecosystems available today. From our very first conversations, there was a genuine excitement around bringing something distinctly African into that creative space. They even responded to our first email the very next day, which immediately signalled how aligned they were with the vision.
For us, this partnership is about contributing something truly distinctive. Not just another collection of samples, but a body of work shaped through real collaborations and a deeply intentional approach to music and sound.
That alignment was clear from the very beginning. As Natalie, Label Manager at Loopmasters/ Loopcloud, puts it: “We are incredibly excited to be partnering with Pressure Cooker Studios. From our very first meeting, the energy in the room was undeniable and it was clear we shared the same vision. Together, we have the opportunity to open exciting new doors for incredibly talented artists, musicians and producers, while giving the global Loopmasters and Loopcloud community exclusive access to authentic, inspiring and truly original African sounds and sample packs.”
There is also a deeper intention behind the work. Many of the instruments and performance styles we have recorded are part of musical traditions that are slowly dying out. By capturing them and placing them into new creative contexts, we hope to contribute to keeping them alive. “Africa is a power-house of untapped potential, but African audio arts are undervalued and underrepresented on the global stage. This release is one small act of correction.”, says James.
Through this partnership there is the opportunity to amplify emerging and underrepresented talent on an international stage. Loopmasters has always placed enormous value on nurturing the labels, musicians and creators they collaborate with. Their long-term approach focuses not only on distribution, but on building sustainable creative brands through thoughtful strategy, promotion and global visibility, ensuring the right sounds reach the right producers around the world. This very much aligns with our purpose to build a platform for talent to flourish.
WHAT’S IN THE SAMPLE PACK COLLECTION:
The first five sample packs launching in the collection are our Afro Roots instruments: Talking Drum, Marimba and Ngoni, alongside Afro Guitarscapes and Afro Vocals. With this initial release, we wanted to lean deeply into what it means to create from an African perspective and celebrate the richness this continent brings to global music culture. Our sample packs reflect this ‘future cinematic sound’, and are designed to work across multiple genres with a strong focus on fast-growing contemporary styles like Amapiano and Afrobeats. These collections give producers immediate access to immersive, culturally rich and authentic material, recorded to the highest professional standard, that will cut through the noise.
As Keith Kavayi, Senior Composer and Creative Lead, at the studio, explains, this idea has been building for a long time. “We have written so much great music over the years, and that inspired us to build a library of sounds that are unique to our studio that aren’t available anywhere else. Internally, we know it as the Composer’s Toolbox.”
At the centre of these packs is a balance that sits at the heart of how we approach sound. On one side, there are recordings captured in their pure form, instruments played by musicians who carry deep cultural knowledge in the way they perform. On the other, there is a process of experimentation and sound design that pushes those recordings into new territories.
“Authenticity isn’t static, it’s always evolving,” Keith explains. “We might start with the raw, organic palette of African instrumentation, but we treat those recordings as living matter. Through manipulation, we can transform them into soundscapes that feel both futuristic and ancient.” That depth is what we are putting into the hands of producers through these sample packs. We know these textures and rhythms can be threaded into a beat, layered into a track, chopped and reshaped and taken in directions we wouldn’t think of ourselves.
That idea of transformation runs through the entire process. Some packs focus on capturing instruments as they are, while others explore what happens when those instruments are approached differently, played in unexpected ways, or shaped through creative processing.
The intention is to create sounds that become starting points that can lead somewhere new.
As Keith puts it: “They are built around authentic rhythm, groove and texture, offering beat makers around the world something distinctive, expressive and unmistakably African.”
OPENING UP OUR COMPOSER’S TOOLBOX
From a broader studio perspective, the decision to release these sounds is also about opening up what has traditionally been a more closed process. As our CEO James Matthes explains, “we’ve been developing this Future Cinematic Sound from our own perspective, building toolkits and sample packs internally so that our music has a unique departure point. What we realised is that these tools often sit unused after a project, when they actually hold so much value beyond that moment.”
Sharing them became a natural next step. “There’s something powerful about allowing these sounds to move beyond us,” James says. “Bringing the world back to Africa where the first musical vibrations began.”
Ultimately, these packs are designed to be used. To be shaped, reworked and taken in directions we could never have anticipated. For producers discovering them for the first time, Keith’s hope is simple: “We want these sounds to trigger inspiration, that is our goal. Whether it’s a song, a score, a track for a commercial, we want these sample packs to be inspiring and easy to implement.”
Our sample packs are out in the world now, ready to be picked up, reimagined, and woven into entirely new stories.