Jack de Marseille • Groovetrackers Archive

Jack de Marseille has over the last several years asserted himself as one of the best DJs in the world. After having won over the most prestigious clubs in Europe, he has now set out to conquer the American continent. His reputation no longer needs proving to his bookers and he is fully booked up for the next six months. He has become a guarantee of success in the techno world and his name only is enough to fill a concert hall.
In France, his homeland, he is regularly placed at the top or in second position in the charts, either in front of or just behind Laurent Garnier, as the favourite DJ of the French public, in front of the well-known names such as Carl Cox, Jeff Mills, and Ritchie Hawtin.
Jack de Marseille is also well known beyond the techno world, and is often invited by the more general media’s with large audiences to give his opinion on his job, his passions, and his projects.
Here are four words that Jack often uses to illustrate what they mean to him and thus to help us to know him a little bit better.

Electronic
Jack prefers to talk about electronic music rather than dividing it up into techno, house or jungle. The type of style, who does what and why, in which particular sector, all this has little importance for him, Jack likes music that takes you elsewhere, helps you to escape from everyday life, that makes you want to dance, that excites you… that engenders life. The third millennium is a new era placed under the sign of exchange and network, where geographical and organic boundaries no longer exist – something almost tribal which brings us to a more human, almost instinctive dimension, and which helps to restore the balance of our technological and professional ramblings. The boom-boom, the sounds that knocks you backwards… the sleepless nights. Electronic music has its own characteristics, its lexical scale, its pomp, its form and substance, and therefore its artists. Notion of movement.

DJ
Jack de Marseille has been an integral part of this universe since 1990 and feels this as an obvious fact. As opposed to the status of disk jockeys that put on a succession of titanic hits to make people dance, he has become a DJ with a « sound » and he mixes with his sensitivity, his ears, his feet and his soul. Mixing is a journey, an invitation to… it is slowly created, day after day carefully chosen samples. The DJ is a collector of emotions and rhythms, which exist, in the artistic energy of improvisation. Mixing is an intimate moment between the dancefloor and Jack. Its all an act of seduction « keep them under your spell ». The first time jack put a platter on the turntable was at 13 or 14 years old: from « Funky Town » by Lips inck to « I love rock’nroll » by Joe & Jet, the pure pleasure of watching the others move and to tell yourself that you’ve chosen the right platter, the right tempo, at the right time… A question of feeling and closeness mixed with generosity. A DJ gives this time and his passion so that we can move our hips as best as we can and dance the night away to the pulsing heartbeat « tchic » and « tchac » of the music.

Percussive
Percussion is the lifeline of Jack’s musical universe. The eclecticism of his choices can only be summed up by the word « percussive ». Jack doesn’t dance, he moves his hands and taps his feet, he beats time. He discovered his element in the Chicago and Detroit productions and has followed Derrick May, Kevin Sanderson and Juan Atkins since their debuts. In this way Jack’s sound, either in his productions and his mixes, finds all its spontaneity in the complimentarily of the beats. He likes the notion of trance, when your body from head to foot becomes one with the rhythm of the music when percussion instruments have a distinct role to play. Then, when you let yourself go, emotion joins in… and that warmth, that makes you smile when the mix slides and finishes in a slight dizziness. You open your eyes. You close your eyes.

Label
Label makes one think of productions, thus of machines, thus of composition, planning and time… a lot of time. Jack doesn’t like talking about things that are not finished. He likes mastering the situation, being good. Jack is a rigorous perfectionist. For the last several years, he has been producing maxis under the label OZONE, a label in joint ownership, which does not limit him and where no contract ties him to one particular structure. Jack needs freedom to create, he is his own critic, knows his own limits and acts freely. He is a solitary man in his choices and in his mind. He lives in a world of his own sounds, images and influences, that he finds difficult to explain to others. He has his heart set on creating his own label and everything that goes with him. He already has a precise idea of what he expects and the sound he would like to produce. For further information… wait and see. He will tell you that thing of my is an honest, healthy, upright guy who feels his music and would therefore like to produce it. Jack lives on chance encounters and sets his sights high. He is patient and has always known how to calmly analyse his feelings. He is a good judge of himself. Trust in him, he won’t let us down.