A native of Italy, near Venice, Marco Shuttle was part of the club scene since the 90s. In 2002 to live in London to continue his studies as a fashion designer, and by chance joined the Süd Electronic crew run by Portable and Lakuti. He then lived in Stockholm where he delivered his hit EP The VoxAttitute in 2011 for Swedish label, Farden. Since then Marco has gone to release on some of the most respected avantguarde techno labels such as Peter Van Hoesen’s Time To Express and DonatoDozzy and Neel’s SpacioDisponibile as well as founding his own label, Eerie.
You have lived in a many cities, Berlin, Stockholm, London, Amsterdam … Is it difficult for you to find a “place to call home”?
(Laughs) I think I have abandoned the idea. I accepted the fact that I’ll probably wander for the rest of my life, although sometimes I lack stability, the “nest”. Somehow I still have the curiosity and desire to belong to something else.
So moving is like a new start?
Exactly, it starts from zero. It’s very exciting, a challenge in many ways be it socially, visually. We are a generation that has easy access to travel and move a lot. It’s a bit a life choice, a way of being.
How does this affect your creativity?
I think my progression and my development has not been determined by the place where I was. When I arrived in London in the early 2000s, I lived a really crucial time, I met people who really marked me and I could not have met in my hometown. I do not know if it really affected my way of composing, but rather how I embraced this career. I think these days where we live is less relevant, the connections are different. For me it’s more people I meet, rather than where I live that count, even if moving changes your attitude and not just musically.
You often speak of the great importance for you to conjure up images in a cinematic sense.
I think my background in visual arts gives me a slightly different approach. Music is a matter of taste, aesthetics. The aesthetics of my music, this viewpoint, binds well with this citation. I think I was raised very early in my life to have certainty on what I find beautiful or not, and this also applies to the sound radically.
I feel that in recent years you have experienced and increasingly explored new regions. Are you a little tired of the framework of techno?
The “4 by 4”? Not tired, but I want to explore different tempos, other approaches. I come from the club, those are my roots and I fell in love with this music coming out. I like techno, but at the same time I wanted to work ondowntempo, and limits have fallen in recent years. I explore new ground when I reach a certain state and I have worked on several abstract pieces, I want to do something for the dancefloor. I like to alternate the two, and both have something to gain from this experience. I do not see my work as divided into two parts, everything fits rather well.
When it comes to DJing, is it the same thing or do you have a different approach?
It really depends, DJing is very situational. I think I am considered in some way as a DJ quite experimental. I play deep and hypnotic, but I do not think monolithic, if I have time – and the more I have, the better – my range is from Detroit techno to arrive at something very deep in Dozzy style, but also Aphex Twin, Jeff Mills; the music I tend to offer has many flavors. I maintain a deep music, enough “dystopian” and introspective, but I also like to make a 360 ° revolution on a journey that remains consistent.
https://soundcloud.com/marco_shuttle
In your opinion, would you say that you are part of the Italian techno wave or rather outside?
To be honest I do not care a bit and it’s not really for me to decide how people perceive my music.
I think there is something that connects some Italian producers to deep and hypnotic music, perhaps in relation to the label ElettronicaRomana.
Maybe some put myself in that category because of my collaboration with DonatoDozzy, but I’ve never been in a group tied to a geographical location. I have not been part of the scene in Rome and I only metDonato there two years ago. I do not find my music dark as it is sometimes described, but it is interesting that my perception is different from the perception of others. I just try to always do things in a new way. Sometimes I begin some pieces at 30bpm, I try to surprise myself with unconventional tempos. I like to leave things open.
You have a very conceptual approach.
I do not really force myself to get there, it comes naturally. I rarely have a starting point when I start a piece. I sculpt the sounds with my machines and I try to modulate in a stream to build a narrative. It’s like going on a trip and going to the airport to buy a ticket without knowing the destination.
A native of Italy, near Venice, Marco Shuttle was part of the club scene since the 90s. In 2002 to live in London to continue his studies as a fashion designer, and by chance joined the Süd Electronic crew run by Portable and Lakuti. He then lived in Stockholm where he delivered his hit EP The VoxAttitute in 2011 for Swedish label, Farden. Since then Marco has gone to release on some of the most respected avantguarde techno labels such as Peter Van Hoesen’s Time To Express and DonatoDozzy and Neel’s SpacioDisponibile as well as founding his own label, Eerie.