A live remix for Coca-Cola and the Olympics

In 2011 Coca-Cola and the Olympics asked my brother and me to create a performance and live remix using “sounds of sport”, the Coca-Cola theme and the Olympic theme, with Mark Ronson and Katy B.

The challenge

We recorded more than 400 samples of Olympic athletes, from table tennis paddles hitting balls to chalk on the rings, then built a simple touchscreen interface with Coca-Cola to play them back live.

The task was a live performance piece built around those sounds, written with Mark Ronson and Katy B, who wrote the original. Live, in one take, with nothing pre-recorded, every single time, in front of crowds of 20,000 to 85,000 people.

The result

Our live-looping hybrid electronic performance toured the UK with the Olympic Torch, finishing in Hyde Park in front of 85,000 people. There was never an official video, but an audience recording is below. It was pure insanity to look out at that crowd, and a joy to be part of something as big as the Olympics.