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Fresh off the release of his debut full length Glass Effect, London-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Marc has just shared the third clip from a series of live performance clips recorded live at London’s Corsica Studios. “Way We Are” is an easy highlight from the album, and Marc’s crack six-piece band demonstrate an elastic ability to stretch the simmering grooves of the original to the outer limits of free jazz improvisation and bring it back intothe pocket at will. Served as a trio the performance clips underscore the diverse scope of Marc’s singular vision that chart his own musical journey from studying classical music, to becoming a key collaborator in the burgeoning London jazz scene, to immersing himself dance and hip hop production techniques, and on.
“Often classified as a jazz artist, though obviously when you listen there’s a whole lot more going on in his music than that. On Glass Effect he keeps pushing the boundaries, he just keeps pushing out and stretching.” - NPR
"swirling arrangements—which synthesize jazz, hip-hop, neoclassical, and electronic" - PITCHFORK
“The music swirls and floats past like a multi-coloured cloud” - STEREOGUM
"It’s one part Four Tet to Freddie Hubbard, the intersection where Bonobo meets Blue Note, reflective of the contemporary UK jazz scene’s penchant for modern club sounds as well as traditional jazz performance.” - TREBLE
Producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Marc, a key figure of London’s cutting edge jazz scene, has just released his debut full length, Glass Effect, via Innovative Leisure. A follow up to last September’s acclaimed Breathe Suite EP, the album is an assured and accomplished 13-track realization of a singular vision that unifies a multitudinous profusion of influences (from free-jazz, to broken beat, to hip hop and beyond) into a sublime whole, underscoring his quest for a distinctive sound: lambent and low-key, yet dizzyingly intricate. The album is rounded out by stunning LP artwork and packaging by accomplished designer Vlad Sepetov (Kendrick Lamar, Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Brittany Howard). As a counterpoint to the album’s meticulously layered production, the last couple of weeks Marc has shared a pair of raucous and soulful live studio videos by his crack six-piece band performing album highlights “Mustard” and “First Batch,” underscoring just how potent his songwriting is.
It’s a rare talent that can link Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke, Afrofuturists Sun Ra Arkestra, and grime legend Dizzee Rascal, but Marc has long blurred musical worlds and criss-crossed boundaries. On double and electric bass, he flits between jazz, classical, and electronic music, whether playing on Greenwood’s award-winning score for the film The Master or touring with Astatke for over 10 years, as well as working with the likes of Matthew Herbert, Charles Mingus, China Moses, and Soweto Kinch – and even joining Tina Turner onstage.
Marc, the alias of Neil Charles, has quite the musical pedigree. While studying classical double bass at the prestigious Trinity College of Music in London, Marc had a chance meeting with Gary Crosby, linchpin of Tomorrow’s Warriors (the crucial London jazz educators that connect the UK new wave luminaries, from Nubya Garcia to Moses Boyd) after which the possibility of jazz shone like a beacon. This began a game-changing journey that led him to play with the jazz group Empirical and then to form the free-jazz trio Zed-U, alongside Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming) and drummer Tom Skinner (The Smile), whose collaborations ignited a new passion in Marc for electronic music.
One of the reasons that he started writing Glass Effect, says Marc, was going to nightclubs in Ibiza and experiencing the heady sun-dappled euphoria of a summery dancefloor, as well as the beat-driven production of artists like Four Tet, Bonobo, Machinedrum, DJ Shadow, and Madlib. But the album also wears its London influence prominently - on “Jawbone,” there are echoes of broken beat, the genre that came out of house and 2step in the early-2000s, while the Mike Skinner of the new UK scene, Joshua Idehen, intones over the brass-led “Dark Clouds” about the resilience of being a Black man in the city. Ultimately, Glass Effect is an uplifting record. “Keep Moving,” a track Marc wrote in Japan in a hotel room at 4am after a show with Jose James, and which again features Attica Blues singer Midnight Roba on stunning vocals, feels like it’s beckoning a bright future over daintily dancing flute. “It’s hopeful,” says Marc of the album. “We all need as much of that as we can get.”
London-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Marc has shared a new song “This Time Next Year,” the latest advance track from his forthcoming Glass Effect album (out April 22 from Innovative Leisure). The heady track digs into Marc’s talents as a producer and arranger, meticulously layering looped snippets of acoustic guitar melodies amidst pulsing synth pads and a swaggering beat. The song’s profusion of influences is illustrative of Marc’s singular vision - one that charts his own musical journey from studying classical music, to becoming a key collaborator in the burgeoning London jazz scene, to learning dance and hip hop production techniques, and on.
For a pre-order of Glass Effect, visit Ben Marc's Bancamp page here.
London-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Marc has shared another single from his forthcoming Glass Effect album (out this Spring from Innovative Leisure). “Sometimes Slow” pairs a virtuosic skittering drum performance with a circling xylophone pattern that opens up with layers of guitar, synths, and looping percussion. Alongside previous album singles “Mustard,” “Give Me Time,” and “The Way We Are,” the new song is illustrative of his singular vision, unifying a profusion of influences (that chart his personal journey from the concert hall, to the jazz club, to the dance club, and back) into a sublime whole, underscoring the evolution of his quest for a distinctive sound: lambent, low-key, and dizzyingly intricate. https://smarturl.it/BM_sometimesslow
See a recent piece on Edition where Ben Marc breaks down his top 5 most influential albums.