BERLIN-based composer and vocalist Lou McMahon has announced Dead Sound, a symphonic new work created in collaboration with the world-renowned Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg, due for release on Friday August 1, with pre-save and pre-order available from June.
The piece forms part of McMahon’s orchestral video game concept project Butterfly Wars and was recorded as part of the Live Score Berlin initiative by Audiocreatures. Built around slithering strings, ethereal vocal textures and cinematic brass, Dead Sound expands from intimate melancholy into vast, space-like dynamics before returning with what McMahon describes as profound emotional force — a reflection, she says, of a world at war both externally and internally.
Within the Butterfly Wars concept, the work portrays a lone figure navigating limerence in a science-fiction world. The project originated as small ensemble compositions for string quartet before evolving into full orchestral scale.
An acoustic version was released in 2025 under McMahon’s pseudonym MeaisÃn, with the new orchestral arrangement expanding on the choral language she developed for the Pacific Drive: Whispers in the Woods game trailer — a work described by US gaming publication Polygon as a haunting drone choir.
Lou McMahon also contributes to Culture File on RTÉ Lyric FM.