ISSUE #1 - ANOMALY MAGAZINE WITH MARCUS WORGULL

Off the back of his Anomaly Live release, the crew sat down with Marcus Worgull (Innervisions) for a fireside chat.

Tell us about yourself and a quick background and about your sound?

I'm Marcus, I live in Cologne, Germany and I'm DJing and producing music since the mid-nineties, and – while writing this down, I'm getting aware of how long this might sound, but somehow it doesn't feel like so many years, even decades already.

Where does your musical experience come from?

Although I was raised playing the piano and drums for many years (played in a school band – even sung in a choir), the approach in producing electronic music is something completely different for me. Playing together with other musicians feels more like a game or a dance, whereas the work in a studio is – on one hand - strongly connected to the memories from recent club nights as a DJ and on the other hand also more focused on the output.

How did you approach your Anomaly mix or live show? 

This mix is the recording of a fun night in Milan at Volt Club a few months ago, where I’ve played many times and this night was a good and trippy at ease mood together with Jepe and we enjoyed the night a lot. When Anomaly asked for a mix from a club gig, I tried to record a couple of mixes, but always something didn't go right. Either the recording was bad or I forgot to press the right button or to tell the technician to record it. Of course it is something different if you take a part of a recording from a night gig and publish it or if you sit down and record a specific mix, where you can show a bit more of the full musical circle. At least this counts for me.

You have played many iconic sets over the years. How do you approach your DJ sets? 

Since I don't play every weekend like I did before the Corona pandemic, the routine changed a bit. Playing for years - week in, week out - provides a very constant flow and the focus is much more on the music you discover during the last few days. My focus now is not so much on playing the newest tracks that I get, yet more on the story I want to tell, which means that I don't hesitate to go way back through my library and pick tunes, that aged well or that I rediscovered. There exists and has been produced a lot of great electronic music over the last 30 years, so the predicate „new“ doesn't always mean „fresh“ or interesting for me. I let things flow a bit more.

What has been your favorite gig in the last few months? 

As I’ve played a lot of great gigs recently in spots like Ibiza, Madeira, Paris, Tel Aviv, Milan and of course in my hometown Cologne, it is hard to pick a specific one.  

How do you see the future of electronic music evolving?

To give a proper answer to this question would take me a couple of days or weeks, as there is so much going on, on so many levels, socially and technically. In short I got two ideas: First - the production process of music changed and changes quite fast, I’m very curious when we will listen to the first really good tune, that is just done by clever prompt engineering, using AI. Second - also the presentation and the reception of electronic music changed and changes quite fast, so foreseeing the future is too speculative. I'm pretty convinced though, that group gatherings in dark or dimmed-lighted rooms where someone (or something) is playing loud music, that is enjoyed by people who want to lose themselves, will continue to happen for a long time.

Was there a defining moment when you realised you could do this full-time?

It was more a moment when I decided to do this full-time. It was in the middle of a quite boring literature lecture in university where I stood up and left, knowing that I won't come back and that I want to do „anything music related“. At the beginning, this meant to work in a record store, just to be close to all this music. As I was a father of a young boy at this time already, this was not an easy, yet naive decision, that I’ve never regret.

Any exciting releases coming up?

There is stuff in the pipeline, but it is still uncertain when and where I will release it. Also i will release some great tracks on my label Chorus again this year. More news on this soon.

What advice would you give to up-and-coming DJs/producers trying to break into the industry?

If you want to be a lucky person, just follow your ideas and do what you really want and take mistakes and failures as necessary experiences. If you „want to break into the industry“ and you want to do it fast, you certainly have to adopt some of the mechanisms that are useful and needed in (any) industry.

What do you outside of music? 

During the Corona pandemic I joined university (again) and at the moment I'm studying social science part time, which I do enjoy a lot. I'm already working from time to time at the political science department at my university, doing research and development.

How do you handle the pressures of social media and branding as an artist?

As you can see on my frequency in posting stuff, I don't follow a certain strategy or anything like that. It's more like an off-and-on between ignorance and a somewhat amateurish handling. But – of course – I'm a curious person and I’m keeping an eye on things, that happen. What I can say is, that I'm not a big fan of feeling somehow forced to present myself in a super duper „best-version-of-myself“- mode - and - of course - I know that NOT all forms of social media work like this. But the logic of chasing situations and excerpts of my day-to-day life and using these somehow made-up images to arise recognition, attention and response still feels strange to me.

What’s one track you wish you had produced yourself?

Of course I know a lot of great, unbelievable good tracks, some of them have their own mystic little details, that I can't analyse or that I just don't understand. But it is a strange idea to imagine being the creator of those tracks, as I know, it is just not possible for me (and in some cases also not even for the original artists to reproduce this moment and technique).

What’s your process when producing a new track? 

I wish there would be a process. It’s always different with each project, sometimes it starts with a little melody (sometimes inspired by soundtracks in movies, that touches me) or with a certain sample or even an idealistic approach to get close to a certain moment from a recent club night. This might be a start. From there it is mostly the well-known trial and error procedure.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career so far?

To put a long story short: Trust the process!

FULL MIX AVAILABLE HERE

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