Composer duo Michael Künstle and Matteo Pagamici detail their debut album DIMENSIONS out 8th August, recorded at Abbey Road Studios with a 92-piece orchestra
After earning widespread acclaim for their award-winning film scores, including the Golden Eye for Best International Film Music at the Zurich Film Festival, Zurich-based composer duo Matteo Pagamici and Michael Künstle now turn their cinematic craft inward with DIMENSIONS, their debut album set to release on 8th August, 2025.
Recorded live at Abbey Road Studios with a 92-piece orchestra, DIMENSIONS reimagines the traditional ensemble as a living synthesiser. Each instrument is carefully composed to mimic electronic textures - delay effects, white noise, LFO's - creating an otherworldly blend of acoustic warmth and experimental sound design. The result is a breath taking journey through memory and place, inviting listeners to explore soundscapes that feel both familiar and astonishingly new.
Inspired by the pair's childhood ritual of linking music to travel memories, DIMENSIONS serves as a “musical travel diary”, embedding moments and emotions from the duo’s personal journeys.
The album unfolds as a series of vivid sonic landscapes, from the crystalline solitude evoked in ‘Lighthouse’, the previous single ‘Isbjerge’, an intimate soundscape of Arctic majesty, to the textured, raw atmosphere of urban life in “Brutalist.” Each composition invites listeners to inhabit a distinct place and moment, brought to life through a masterful fusion of orchestral warmth and electronic-inspired sound design.
The newly released single ‘Freedom To Live’ captures the exhilaration of movement and change, accompanied by a striking music video featuring a solitary ballerina dancing alone in a dimly lit studio - a visual meditation on grace, solitude, and resilience.
Speaking on the composition's creation the duo said this: “Do you know the effort paradox? It’s the idea that the more effort you put into making something the more effortless the outcome will feel. "Freedom To Live" is a condensation of ideas that have been crawling on my mind for a long time. Years ago, we started to experiment with a writing technique that we would later call 'Random Scale Lines'. It’s the idea to choose a set of pitches and boundaries and let each individual line have total freedom. It’s almost like a random scale generator of a synthesiser. With this piece, I wanted to have three levels of such random scale lines. All of them are seemingly working against each other and yet over time, tension becomes colour and release becomes the feeling of freedom. The writing process was a true manifestation of the effort paradox. It was so quick that it itself felt like a release - a freeing feeling of true expression."
The album comes packaged with a companion book filled with evocative photography and diary entries, offering a rare glimpse into the worlds behind the music. With ‘Freedom To Live’ the duo recount a
"The Mediterranean Sea rises majestically in front of me. I‘ve seen it before, but never from this angle. We drive down the Swiss Alps, passing Liguria’s curvy roads, clashing the rocky hills with the calm sea. There’s something liberating about sitting in a car and seeing the vastly changing scenery fly by your window."
"At the height of Monaco, the sun slowly sets and paints the scene in the most beautiful colours. At a viewpoint, we come to a stop. It’s breathtaking. The sea, the city, the scenery. Safely embraced by the caring arms of the mountains, the city quietly breathes under its protection. I feel the wind gently touch my face, filling my lungs with the scent of the sea and the smell of the city. I‘m overwhelmed by the beauty of this sight. This is what freedom feels like. What a day to be alive!"
DIMENSIONS A richly textured journey that pushes the boundaries of modern neoclassical composition.
Watch the ‘Freedom To Live’ music video here:
Matteo Pagamici and Michael Künstle bio:
Michael Künstle and Matteo Pagamici are a composer-duo who have garnered international attention early in their careers as nominee and winner of the Zurich Film Festival’s Golden Eye Award for Best International Film Music.
The two composers have been writing music for film, TV and advertisement for over a decade and joined forces in 2020. Among their notable collaborations is the production and arrangement of the title song for Frauke Finsterwalder’s period drama Sisi & I (2023), performed by Academy Award nominee Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall). Their recent advertising work include scoring the official Etsy Super Bowl 2024 campaign, as well as composing for Samsung’s global advertising campaign for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Over the years, the pair has composed music for a diverse array of projects, seamlessly jumping between genres. They scored the drama series New Heights (concept by Petra Volpe, 2021-2024), the first Swiss series acquired by Netflix and released in 190 countries. Their music can also be heard in the French-Swiss crime series HORS SAISON (2022), directed by Pierre Monnard and starring César Award winner Marina Hands and Jean-Hugues Anglade (The Sopranos). Other notable scores include Sabine Boss’ dramedy feature The Neighbours From Upstairs (2023), Julien Wagner’s thriller September Babies (2024, Apple TV) and the comedy series Die Beschatter (2022-2025), created by Michael Steiner and Academy Award nominee Timo von Gunten, for which the duo composed over nine hours of original music.
Michael Künstle has written over 150 arrangements across jazz, pop, and classical music, including work for Echo Prize winner Jasmin Tabatabai. He occasionally conducts crossover concerts that bring together orchestras and pop artists. Previous collaborations include sharing the stage with Pekka Kuusisto and Hauschka.
Matteo Pagamici has worked closely with renowned cellist Martin Tillman (Hans Zimmer’s The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean) on recording sessions for major international projects, including Gladiator 2 and the Apple TV+ series Silo, as well as a wide range of production music.
Together, they share a broad musical background. Matteo is a classically trained guitarist, deeply interested in music technology. Michael’s path started as a drummer and songwriter in hard rock bands. He soon found interest in all kinds of musical genres, including jazz and electronic music. They met at the Zurich University of the Arts, where they both studied music for film, theatre and media.
