Ahead of the curve with Marco Farone

Liverpool clubnight Rubix celebrates two years of parties on Saturday 29th November, with 24 months of house and techno genius capped off by a debut in the city from Italian firebrand Marco Faraone.

The starlet has ignited labels like Desolat, Moda Black and Moon Harbour, with a thoroughly mature sound that belies his relative young age - he's still firmly entrenched in his twenties - as well as developing a reputation as a Dj who knows a thing or two, catch him on Drumcode Radio above in blistering form.

Ahead of the Birthday at The Garage in Liverpool's Baltic Quarter, we caught up with the DJ to discuss his musical family, the allure of techno and much more.

So you’ll be heading to Liverpool at the end of this month, your first time in the city right? How you find the British scene?

I'm really looking forward to playing my first time in Liverpool. I've never been there and I've heard very good things about the party and the scene in general.

I really love the British scene - things happen over there usually happen in other countries a few months later so it's a very interesting place for an artist to check out the crowd's reaction to new stuff!

Can you let us in on what we can expect from your set, or is that something you decide on the night?

I never prepare my sets beforehand. I always play everything because I don't catalogue the music into styles. Every club, place, crowd is different. My style is that I try to read the crowd and atmosphere and base my set on that feeling.

We’re interested to know about your musical background… we read that your family are involved in music? How are they involved and how did you go from that into the world of techno?

My family was involved a lot in music. My father was a DJ back in the eighties, working for a local radio station. My grandfather was a folk singer and musician. Everything started from that - I was listening to all kinds of music since an early age, giving me a very solid background. I was listening to Jean Michel Jarre on my eighth birthday!

I started DJ'ing when I was 14, which is very young, but I was playing different music than what I'm doing now. I started out with hip hop records from Run DMC, 2pac... Later I played Drum & Bass because I needed something freakier! 

It's only around 2006 that I moved to techno and house and I've been playing that ever since. However I always try to keep the musical background present in what I'm doing now, my sound is definitely still influenced by all that. It's not just grounded in house and techno.

What fascinated you about techno, when we guess you could have gone into any style?

In all honesty, I I was fascinated about house first. I loved the Masters At Work movement and sound from the nineties, and other artists like Todd Terry. I started listening to house and techno almost at the same time so that's why I'm always playing and listening a bit of everything and trying to play a more eclectic set.

I'll never say "tonight I'll play house" or "tonight I'll play techno", I just do what I feel like doing. In terms of techno, I was very fascinated about the Detroit scene with artists such as Jeff Mills and Derrick May, but one of my favourite artists ever is Laurent Garnier! 

For me, he is THE DJ. He can play everything in his set so easily, which I think is a very important capability of a DJ. (Hear him do just that live at Electric Chair above in 2003) 

And you played your first gig at the age of 14! How did that come about? And what DJs/producers did you really look up to in those early years?

I wasn't really looking up to a particular DJ or producer. I just went to the record shops, buying the things that sounded cool to me. At that age I didn't really know about the music movement. I only realized years later that I had some special vinyls in my collection. For me, it was important to have fun. It didn't matter what artists I was playing on my gigs. 

I remember that I was so excited when I first got the chance to play in public. It was a friend of mine who heard me playing at home and who told his friend, a club owner. I was so happy! Sometimes when I'm traveling, I still think about some of those moments. I owe a lot to my family because they gave me the chance to pursue my dream and to let me do what I enjoyed most.

A lot of your work has been snapped up by some of the real techno heavyweights, namely Adam Beyer for Drumcode, Loco Dice for Desolat, and Matthias Tanzmann for Moon Harbour. How did those signings come about and has it felt to get your work championed by these guys?

Everything started from zero. I’ve been sending demo’s to Moon Harbour since 2009. I’d sent the track 'Broken keyboard' to Matthias and he loved it and signed it, but the big revelation was when he played 'Strange Neighbours' (below) at DC10 in Ibiza. There was this crazy sit down on the tune and the crowd just went completely wild.

The day after that Matthias sent me an email and in 2010 I finally released my first EP on Moon Harbour, it had amazing support. The satisfaction this gave me was so big, I would say that this was the beginning of my career. After that I got in touch with Loco Dice, so I’ve recently released on his label as well.

Besides that it’s just amazing that I can work together with artists such as Adam Beyer. They are such important and amazing artists. It’s a big pleasure for me to express myself with my music on labels like this.

There seems to be a lot of great techno coming out of Italy at the moment, what is the scene like over there and what do you think has helped it thrive so much?

I'm really happy that there are so many good Italian producers! I'm proud of it. I always support people who send me good, new music, and it's a positive to be able to help the scene there in that way.

Every weekend there are so many international DJ's playing in Italy, bringing their own sound. It's a country with sooo many good, amazing clubs and even more amazing crowds. 

It's difficult to find such an explosive crowd like that elsewhere. A lot of Italians have the amazing quality of making very groovy music, I don't know why. Probably because we're such a warm country.

You’ve accomplished so much at a young age, where will you go from here? What’s next for Marco Faraone?

I have so many projects in mind for my future. I'll put out some new material on the labels where I've already released such as Desolat, Drumcode, .. but I'll try and discover new things as well. Maybe I'll create a new label where I can express my sound? Who knows..

I'll have a new remix for the legendary duo Groove Armada coming out soon, this one makes me very excited! I've also got a new official remix for the Norwegian jazz singer Mari Kvien Brunvoll in the pipeline - this is an artist that has only collaborated with Ricardo Villalobos until now - I'm sure you can imagine my feeling about this one!

I'm also trying some new underground platforms and vinyls only where I can do something a little dubbier and special. Besides all of those things, I've also got a lot of new EP's in the near future on Moon Harbour and many more, so I'm keeping busy!

 

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