presented by
The British artist Marsh joined us at the Audionamix popup studio at Nexus Lounge Amsterdam. The deep and progressive House artist has been making waves in the electronic music arena lately, and there’s no sign of it stopping. His music has been played on esteemed radio stations worldwide, and he has recently played Printworks and The Drumshed in London.
In our interview, Marsh talks about sampling and his songwriting process and answers some of our quickfire Take-5 questions.
One of Marsh’s talents is sampling. One of his most popular tracks is warm and inviting Come Together with Nox Vahn; the famous philosopher Alan Watts was used as an introductory sample. “I love to sample stuff”, he says. “I’m quite good at disguising bits, and if we need to clear a sample, normally, the label will take care of that.”
Marsh also gave us an insight into his process of creating some of his hypnotic and alluring tracks:
“I like to start with a lot of atmospheres, and I like to build chord progressions. I like to wait as long as I can before I start building drums. I like to make sure I’ve got a key, a riff, a hook, or something [if] I’m building a big 16-bar loop and adding to it; different layers of sound and melody ideas. When I feel like I’ve got the theme of the track, I’ll be like ‘I can really focus the track around this idea’. Then I’ll build drums and start building a bassline and then I’ll go from there and arrange it.
Being able to create tracks with such complexities without a bassline or drum pattern doesn’t come without a lot of practice. “I guess I learned early on like sometimes I’d have a nice vibe, and I’d start building drums, and I’d start arranging the track, and I’d be like “this goes nowhere,” he says. “There’s no soul to this, there’s no major element…sometimes when it all clicks, it’s the best feeling out of anything in the whole career.”
This love of the process of creating music has only grown alongside Marsh’s career. His upcoming third album releases in February of 2023, which features a collaboration with Simon Doty titled Touch The Sky (out now). While his music is his passion, it doesn’t come without cost. “It’s been the craziest year, and I keep saying this,” Marsh says. “I mean, the tour schedule has been relentless. It’s been pretty much every Friday and Saturday, no days off”. But, in a fitting response to our first Take-5 question, he would give himself more discipline when giving himself downtime.
Listen to the full interview below.
