Marc Reck

After the La Traviata After Party, the Mr Elephant mixtapes, and the last Custom Made, i’m finding that i can play to much wider audiences, and get just as much of a response as the big main room club sets generate. (Which is great because i really do love it!)

With just breaks set, i think its poss to have a strong narrative, and still get everyone’s socks properly rockin, but the lights, performers, and and the visuals especially need to be synced really well for it to come across effectively. Its something i’ve tried on a few occassions with the very talented Vj Chromatouch, and with various performance and dance collectives. The last Project X, The Que Reopening Set @ Drop Beats Not Bombs and the Peace Not War set, which featured 2 inspired dance groups, Lisa Wetton and the Birmingham Dance Collective, (footage on my myspace) all needed to be pre worked out, so that the dancers, visuals and lights could all work with the set. This can feel limiting from a dj point of view, as you are obviously tied to what you’ve already worked out, but as long as there is a lot of work beforehand, they can produce some extra special results, and they all seem to have gone down really well. That said however, i’m not so sure how much of the narrative really came across, as Leon’s last minute approach to things, coupled with last minute technical vj duties to cover on two occassions, may have resulted in our sets becoming a more dj/vj experience from the dancefloor’s point of view?.I can’t tell either way as i’m facing towards the audience, so it’s all speculation on my part, but this is something i do dream of doing really well, and it’d be nice to do it really soon. The ultimate is a performance type approach where the whole set is all my music i’ve created and remixed, live, djed and electronic, hopefully working with the people i’ve performed with over the years in a more show type experience, but for now, i think i need to work within my realistic limits. Me and Leon are planning to do something again, with a new approach from us both, and i reckon broadening the sets out into different genres is going to work well with the samples, but if anyone is interested in either producing some video or animation to one of the few narrative mixes, or mr elephant mixtapes, that are availible, or of course collaberating on something in the future, please feel free to get in touch