The best origin story in independent music this month is, improbably, about a farm.
In October 2025, during Amsterdam Dance Event — five days in which more than 3,300 artists and a few thousand industry professionals compress into one city and spend most of it pitching each other — Dutch producer and songwriter Alex van Dijk got into a conversation at a BMG gathering with British songwriter Conan Mac. By van Dijk’s account, the conversation had almost nothing to do with music. They talked about life, about Conan’s farm, and about the way he had chosen to live.
Nothing came of it that afternoon. Roughly a year later, it is the reason “Lost & Never Found” exists — a single by the Italian bass singer Davide Dalmonte, produced by van Dijk from a home studio in Veenendaal, with guitar parts recorded in the UK by Will Farquarson of Bastille. It was released on September 18, 2026.
At a glance
- Song: “Lost & Never Found” — a single credited to Davide Dalmonte
- Released: September 18, 2026
- Produced and mixed by: Alex van Dijk, from his home studio in Veenendaal, the Netherlands
- Vocal production: Conan Mac
- Mastering: Björn Engelman
- Written by: Conan Mac, Davide Dalmonte and Yael Watchmen, who contributed the pre-chorus melody
- Guitar: Will Farquarson of Bastille, recorded in the UK
- Recorded in: two countries, with nobody in the same room at any point
- Why it matters: the whole collaboration traces back to one non-musical conversation at Amsterdam Dance Event in 2025
How did “Lost & Never Found” actually come together?
The chain of events is worth laying out in order, because it is a far more honest picture of how records get made now than any label announcement.
Van Dijk and Conan Mac met at ADE in 2025 and did not write anything. What they did was get along. That connection turned into a first songwriting session earlier in 2026, which van Dijk says came together easily enough that both of them wanted to do it again.
A few months after that, van Dijk called Conan about an entirely different project. In the course of that call, he learned that a producer had unexpectedly dropped out of a project for Davide Dalmonte. Conan asked whether van Dijk could take it over. Van Dijk was available. He took it.
That is the entire mechanism. No pitch, no A&R meeting, no brief. A relationship formed over a conversation about farming, a phone call about something else, a vacancy, and a producer who happened to have the calendar space. Most records that arrive this way never say so out loud, which is exactly why it is worth saying.
Where was the record made?
In two countries, and in no shared room at all.
Van Dijk built the music in his home studio in Veenendaal, a town of about 68,000 in the Dutch province of Utrecht that is not, by any measure, a recording capital. That instrumental foundation went to the UK, where Conan Mac and Dalmonte wrote to it and cut the vocal. The guitars were tracked in the UK as well — by Farquarson. The vocal files then travelled back to the Netherlands, where van Dijk finished the production and played the remaining parts himself. Conan Mac produced the vocals, Yael Watchmen contributed the pre-chorus melody as one of the song’s writers, and Björn Engelman mastered the finished track.
So the record moved: Netherlands, United Kingdom, Netherlands. The people never did.
“It’s a special feeling when you’re sitting in your studio and suddenly the guitar parts from Will arrive. It makes you incredibly excited and happy. Moments like that remind you how amazing it is to be able to collaborate with people like this from your own studio.” — Alex van Dijk
Who is Davide Dalmonte?
If the name is unfamiliar, the voice may not be. Dalmonte is an Italian singer, songwriter and producer born in 2005, with a bass register low enough that a good deal of his early audience found him through people reacting to it. His Spotify biography describes him as a self-taught creative who discovered music during quarantine, working across pop, soul and funk.
The audience that register built is not small. By mid-2024 he had passed 1.5 million TikTok followers, most of them earned on duets that slid a bass line underneath somebody else’s clip, and he was already telling interviewers he wanted out of covers and into originals. His Apple Music profile puts the beginning somewhere much less assured: the first song he ever tried to sing was a Lewis Capaldi track, and he failed at it. He names Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Bad and Dangerous as the records that rearranged what he thought music could be.
His breakout credit is the one the release materials point to: he is one of the credited vocalists on The Wellermen’s version of “Hoist The Colours”, the a cappella sea-shanty treatment of the piece written for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, with music by Hans Zimmer. That track has passed 70 million Spotify streams and remains, by a wide margin, the biggest thing attached to his name. As of late August 2026 he had roughly 852,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
What he has been doing since is the more interesting part: moving out of viral-clip territory and into an original catalog. Recent releases under his own name include “Virus,” “In Another Life,” “Falling Again,” “Dying To Live,” “Hollow,” “Tug of War” and “Dream Girl (Are We Ever Gonna Meet Again),” plus “Missing Piece” with John Michael Howell. A produced, co-written single with an outside team is the logical next rung.
Who is Conan Mac?
The man with the farm is a British singer-songwriter from Newbury who has spent several years writing and toplining for dance and electronic acts rather than chasing an artist career at all costs. His own press materials credit him with more than 30 million streams, a top-15 UK iTunes singer-songwriter chart placing at 16, and collaborations including the Brazilian DJ KVSH (released on Alok’s Controversia label), Danish duo TooManyLeftHands and Mark Mendy on Soave Records, Sarah Dewarren, and MD/Jafuri. His tracks “Taste” and “Carbon” both took Soave “Best of 2020” honours.
That profile matters here for a practical reason. A working topliner with that many rooms behind him is a hub: he knows who is free, who has dropped out, and who would be right. Van Dijk did not find this session by applying for it. He found it by being the person Conan thought of.
Who is Will Farquarson?
Will Farquarson plays bass and guitar in Bastille, the London band he has been part of alongside Dan Smith, Kyle Simmons and Chris “Woody” Wood since the beginning — a group that turned “Pompeii” into one of the most-streamed British singles of the 2010s and marked fifteen years together with a UK arena run in late 2025.
“My studio is my base, but from here I can work with people all over the world. That’s what I love about producing music today. You can be in the Netherlands and still be part of an international creative process. I’m incredibly proud that this collaboration has resulted in a release like this.” — Alex van Dijk
What this says about how records get made in 2026
For most of recorded-music history, the scarce resource was the room: the console, the live area, the engineer, the budget that paid for all three, and the gatekeeper who decided who got in. Distributed production has not eliminated that entirely — mixing, mastering and live tracking still concentrate — but it has moved the scarcity somewhere else. The bottleneck now is the network. Who returns your message. Who thinks of you when a slot opens.
“Lost & Never Found” is a small, clean case study in that shift, and its most instructive detail is the least musical one. The conversation that started it was about a farm. It produced a working relationship precisely because neither party was working it.
For van Dijk, the release reads as a step up in scale — his largest international production credit to date, and the first to put his name next to an artist with a genuine streaming footprint. For Dalmonte, it is a further move from a viral credit toward a built catalog. The single has been out since September 18.
Where to listen and follow
- Davide Dalmonte on Spotify: artist profile
- Davide Dalmonte on Apple Music: artist profile
- Davide Dalmonte on Instagram: @davide.dalmonte_
- Davide Dalmonte on TikTok: @davide.dalmonte_
- Alex van Dijk on Instagram: @hitsasusual
- Conan Mac: artist profile
Frequently asked questions
What is “Lost & Never Found”?
“Lost & Never Found” is a single by Italian singer Davide Dalmonte, produced by Dutch producer and songwriter Alex van Dijk and written by Conan Mac, Dalmonte and Yael Watchmen. Will Farquarson of the British band Bastille plays guitar on the track, recorded in the United Kingdom. The single was released on September 18, 2026.
When was “Lost & Never Found” released?
September 18, 2026.
Who produced “Lost & Never Found”?
Alex van Dijk, a producer and songwriter based in Veenendaal in the Netherlands. He built the instrumental foundation in his home studio, sent it to the UK for the topline and vocal, then completed the production and mix, playing the remaining musical parts himself after the vocal recordings came back. Conan Mac produced the vocals, and Björn Engelman mastered the track.
Who is Davide Dalmonte?
Davide Dalmonte is an Italian singer, songwriter and producer born in 2005, known for an unusually low bass register. His Spotify biography describes him as self-taught and says he found music during quarantine. He is one of the credited vocalists on The Wellermen’s version of “Hoist The Colours,” which has more than 70 million Spotify streams, and he had roughly 852,000 Spotify monthly listeners as of late August 2026.
Who is Conan Mac?
Conan Mac is a British singer-songwriter from Newbury who writes and toplines for dance and electronic acts. His own press materials credit him with more than 30 million streams and collaborations with the Brazilian DJ KVSH, Danish duo TooManyLeftHands, Mark Mendy, Sarah Dewarren and others. He and van Dijk met at Amsterdam Dance Event and first wrote together earlier in 2026.
Did Will Farquarson of Bastille play on the record?
Yes. Will Farquarson, who plays bass and guitar in Bastille alongside Dan Smith, Kyle Simmons and Chris “Woody” Wood, is credited as the guitarist on the single. His parts were recorded in the UK.
Where was “Lost & Never Found” recorded?
In two countries and no shared room. Van Dijk created the music in his home studio in Veenendaal, the Netherlands. Conan Mac and Dalmonte wrote to that foundation and recorded the vocals in the United Kingdom, where the guitars were also tracked. The vocal files were sent back to the Netherlands, where van Dijk finished the production.
Streaming figures and biographical details in this piece were verified independently against the Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer catalogs in August 2026. Performer and production credits (guitar, production, mixing, vocal production and mastering) match the official release credits for “Lost & Never Found,” released September 18, 2026. Yael Watchmen’s songwriting credit was confirmed by the production team. The Amsterdam Dance Event meeting and the sequence of sessions between the Netherlands and the UK come from Alex van Dijk’s written submission to The LA Note. Conan Mac’s streaming totals and awards come from his own press materials. Quotations are reproduced as supplied.
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