At its core, Submersion Festival has no defined “home sound”; there’s no singular lane or style that fully engulfs the breadth of the festival’s musical vision. Both as a part of its appeal, and as a result of the palettes that craft each successive lineup, a diversity of sound and presentation is the fundamental characteristic that carries the event from year to year. High on our own list of desired acts, and standing atop a three-decade career, was Mark Farina, the prolific DJ & producer who’s remained an invaluable staple across the domestic and international touring circuits. Graciously presenting a set of his widely-lauded Mushroom Jazz experience, fans and attendees took advantage of a late afternoon jaunt in the sun against the backdrop of Farina’s vivacious presence and undeniable groove at the Woods Stage. Even measured against the much more intense and weighty electronic music featured throughout the weekend, his impact and reputation cut through to the center of the collective attention span. A few days ahead of his appearance at Submersion, we had the opportunity to have a conversation covering a number of points that sat parallel to Mark Farina’s hour in the Saturday sun.
[The excerpts from this conversation have been edited for brevity and grammar.]
In conversation with Mark prior to the Submersion weekend, it became clear that getting the full picture of his 30 year presence on and off the stage meant going back to a foundational epoch in Chicago’s House music scene. Coming from the same nest of greats such as Derrick Carter and Ron Hardy, Farina’s history is first and foremost a history steeped in House and steady-beat flavor. The meat of that scene starts with the selective and heralded hardware, from the renowned Technic-1200 turntable to tape-based samplers and a plethora of other analog gear. The barrier to entry was altogether higher than it is now, from the need to physically collect the music in question, to the specificity and expense of the equipment in circulation in the late 80s.
“I remember going to this club, a teen club, back towards the end of the 80s where we’d start to experience and see DJing and mixing from a dancefloor perspective. You start to hear the way a continuous blend can really get dialed in, and that’s sort of where the bug takes hold. [...] Then getting into it, I had some friends who had Technic 1200s, which is really all you would use at the time, and that’s how I’d start to get my head around mixing records, and going ‘oh ok these songs line up nicely with each other,’ and then figuring out things like BPM, beatmatching, tempo changes. You sort of build out a kit of routines and doubles and the knowledge of how to actually use the thing. [...] Around the same time, I started to understand sampling and its role in the music I was listening to, in the Chicago House scene, and from there how production with these physical machines and synthesizers really worked. Back then, the physical nature of the tools and the samplers was absolutely a part of how the music ultimately came out, the shape it would take.”
The liberatory rhythms and motifs of early House anthems made a palpable imprint on Farina’s tastes and career, but shortly thereafter in the mid 90s, his Mushroom Jazz mix series would find its genesis first in the dark chill-out rooms at various clubs in San Francisco. Taking cues, cuts, and the musical DNA of European acid jazz and early trip-hop progenitors, fused with the right percussion and manipulated with just enough finesse, he’d stumble into a style and genre that would proliferate into a now long-running series of near endless, laid-back mixes.
“The Mushroom Jazz thing really started not too long after I really started to play out at clubs and get some notoriety. I had moved to San Francisco, and in these side rooms, these chill-out rooms, I'd take like, European and particularly French acid jazz, and combine those tracks with drum rhythms and other things like acapellas, and really it just took on a life of its own. From there I eventually turned it into a dedicated mix that I would occasionally put out, which I still do through this Ibiza station called Openlab. It’s changed a bit over time, evolved to include more styles and tempos, but for me it’s really in its own lane.”
One of the more curious and adventurous aspects of catching Mushroom Jazz live in action was its placement amidst a fairly high-energy lineup for the Submersion weekend. Though far from the chill-out rooms where the style made its first foray through speaker cones, the Woods Stage provided ample ambiance, soft light, and crystalline sound particularly fit for a lightweight sonic serving in the afternoon. Its low rise and accessible placement puts both dancer and performer right in the action, giving him the space and opportunity to do the crowd and his time slot proper justice.
“I come from the time where DJs were sort of off to the side, often in a room with a literal door, pretty separate from the crowd and the party. It can be a little daunting with the way things have changed, how stages have become so much larger and in front of everyone’s attention. It’s built out for a concert, you know? But the thing is, there’s something really powerful when you’re at the center of it, you know, right up with everyone where you can really read the room, get a feel for where everyone is at.”
While we mused about changing stage dynamics and the evolution of electronic music events, he was keen to touch on the music’s modern paradigms, and the sort of formulas that draw him to the selections he’s most interested in. Juggling the onslaught of contemporary releases with an immense collection of yesterday’s finest tracks, he’s got a veritable arsenal to choose from, and a tremendously vested career to back up those decisions.
“It’s really great to look back and realize that there’s 30 years of music history behind me, and so I sort of dig into that history to discover or sometimes rediscover records that have sort of been lost to time. I still have a collection of CDs, from maybe the 2001 to 2007-ish range, when promos were all on CD and there hadn’t yet been a big push into digital as a format. And of course there’s all my vinyl, I still have pretty much every record I’ve ever collected. Sometimes finding new tracks to play is as simple as finally putting on the B-side to a record and realizing there was something great there all along, maybe even better than the A-side. [...] I find that the speed of the music cycle is pretty fascinating today. Kids and younger guys will put out, you know, it feels like a track every two weeks on a different label. There’s so much of it, it gets disorienting pretty fast. I personally feel like, sometimes it’s like sifting through so much music that feels very ‘throw-away’ just to find the things that have the right ingredients. It can even be daunting finding music from labels or acts I know I like, especially if they have a quick output. For me, you know, it’s gotta have the right groove, a solid rhythm, the bass line needs some kick behind it, it’s like a sort of formula that feels right when I hear it.”
Of course, alongside the Dj fundamentals and ample selections, Mark has also been a producer for nearly as long, cutting his teeth on composition and programming in tandem with his development behind the decks. Coming from a youthful background as a drummer, it's no wonder he eventually found his way into percussion-driven genres and the hard-hitting, transient punch of electronic music.
“I’ve been dabbling and producing for almost as long as I’ve been DJing, and obviously I’ve been playing music for even longer, it’s always been there. I’m really a physical guy, in the sense that I do everything ‘out of the box’. I use drum machines and hardware samplers and keyboards and turntables all chained together. When it comes to including it in my own mixes, you know, it's really something I do first and foremost for myself because I enjoy it. A lot of times, I’ll feel like my friends are making better tracks, or just better music for whatever situation I’m in or thing I’m doing, so only so much of it really comes out or gets a real release. […] I’ve been considering making an all-original Mushroom Jazz mix, which is something I think can happen in the near future.”
Reflecting back on some of the major points in our conversation, it’s easy to understate the humility with which he describes himself, his career, and his skill set against the backdrop of his performance that Saturday afternoon at Paradise Lakes. The cool, effusive confidence and choice selection after choice selection reveals an artist that deserves to be called a real DJ’s DJ. The fast-changing dynamics of DJing as art, it’s inevitable crossover with our especially American brand of producer culture, and the evolving direction of electronic music as a global music pillar all feed into a gradually intensifying singularity, but so long as there’s space and appeal, the veterans that carved a path upward for all of us are staying firmly in the mix.
“I’m grateful that, you know, 30 years later, I still have this career, and can still play gigs. Like Derrick Carter, DJ Snake, a lot of those guys are some of my oldest friends and still have their careers, and it's good to see so many of the people from the Chicago scene are still in the mix all these years later. [...] I’ll keep on doing this and DJing and making mixes for as long as I have the opportunity, and probably still after that.”
With the inevitable final notes of Submersion’s Mushroom Jazz experience, there’s a clarity to the role that such a niche, yet palatable kind of music plays in the wider festival and touring circuits. Flipping the script from the sunrise sets and extremely late night appearances, downtempo and laid back electronic music surely has a place in both the spotlight and the sunlight, priming appetites with digestible, sultry melodies and transitions for much heavier musical meals in settings like Submersion and beyond. While there’s no telling what’s in store yet for Submersion 2024, we surely haven’t seen the last of Mark Farina in the northeastern US, and with a career and future as bright as his, it’ll be impossible to miss his next foray in our quaint backyard.
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