Q+A – Five minutes with Marsh
DJ and producer Marsh exudes an unapologetic passion for his craft—total immersion, absolute dedication, and complete commitment. More a calling than a career, his music stems from a lifelong ambition and love for the art.
A fan favorite on Anjunadeep’s roster, Marsh has carved out a distinctly warm, emotional melodic house sound since emerging in the mid-2010s. Inspired by his teenage love of early 2000s, emotionally rich trance and the musicality of crossover drum & bass like Pendulum, he’s distilled these influences into a captivating, soulful signature style.
His latest project, REIMAGINED, revisits and reimagines anthems from his catalog, tracing his evolution and articulating his emotions through craft. This emotional investment and wholesome commitment to his art, fans, and the culture epitomises Marsh and shines through all he does.
Set the tone for us. Where is Marsh currently at creatively?
This year has been incredibly busy touring – for my third album, “Endless” which came out in January – it has taken me to all 4 corners of the world! In the last few months it honestly felt quite a bit back to back, finishing an original and getting it mastered, then finishing a remix, then finishing another original and so on. I’ve recently just delivered a five track EP as well that is out this week on Anjunadeep. All things considered; I’m feeling a little burnt out, creatively if I’m honest… hopefully I’ll recharge quite a bit during the Christmas period and come at it fresh for the New Year!
What sorts of things are inspiring the current direction of your sound?
I think I’m still in a phase where I’m inspired by the 90’s Euro-dancey / Trance / Ravey period. Some old 90’s trance – that’s where I am in the direction of the project, but done in a deeper and proggier way!
Your new EP ‘REIMAGINED’ is interesting in that it reworks five of your signature songs. Could you tell us a bit about the origins of this project?
When I write every track, I often end up in a crossroads where I’ll have two versions of the same track. Because of this, I would get feedback from friends I trust to help me figure out which direction to commit to and go down to finish off the track. This happens on most projects I work on to be honest! In the case of “Reimagined” EP, there were some really big contrasts in some of those tracks. Each one has a similar story, two different versions and each alternate version would get played out at sets and existing online in different formats and some of the fans have fallen in love with some of the different alternate versions, so it felt like an appropriate time to release some of those versions. For instance, “Heaven” – a lot of my friends were in love with the Reese bass line version, including Joris Voorn who has been playing this version out so much that people thought it was his remix!
“Pretty Eyes” – James Grant and Jody Wisternoff fell in love with the original demo version of it which had the piano as a bit more reflective – as the name [on the EP] would suggest, being ‘Marsh’s Reflective Mix’. They made an edit of it which was on Anjunadeep 13 – I just revamped that a little bit to put that out as a lot more people preferred their version of Pretty Eyes to the original.
“White Lie” – I’d actually fallen in love with the vocal version of it around the time I was writing my album “Endless”. Anjunadeep had fallen in love with the instrumental version “Pneuma” and I was more into the vocal version, “White Lie” – there was a lot of back and forth but ultimately we decided to release the instrumental for the album. But I’m so happy to have this version with Jodie Knight (ALLKNIGHT) on the track!
“Love” – ended up as a breaks track when it was first released. But I loved the trancey and more tribal version of it and ended up revamping it as well!
“Free” – ended up being more housey but with the same emotional strings and breakdown. I’ve been playing this version out for a long time too!
Why did now feel like the right moment to revisit your work in retrospect, and what did these revisits teach you as an artist?
I’ve never really revisited my work – it was more like these tracks were alternate versions that existed already at the time of me initially writing them. I love these alternate versions so much and have been playing them out that I wanted to go back and tweak them a bit to release them.The main instigator for this whole project was probably the alternate version of “Free” which is called “Free (Marsh’s Dream Mix)” on the EP. Myself and Dan Curpen from Anjuna really liked this version and were thinking of different ways to release it as it felt like a fresh rework and it didn’t feel boring to me.
How did you go about selecting which five tracks would be reworked for this EP?
Again, I didn’t. I already had the different versions initially and just went back and polished them off.
The concept of ‘REIMAGINED’ opens space for potential future editions or volumes where you rework some of your other tracks. Is this something you’d be interested in exploring?
We realised that at the time of putting out the Reimagined EP. I think it’s possible! As I mentioned, this is definitely a common occurrence for me getting to a crossroads and having two different versions of a track and could definitely be something worth exploring! I don’t think I’d go out of my way to do it, but if I feel like opening up an old project in the future, I’ll definitely do that!
What does the new year look like for you? Any new projects that you’re particularly excited about?
I have a collaboration with one of my heroes in Trance Music which I’m so excited about! Any guesses? I also have a new collaboration with Leo Wood hopefully releasing sometime next year… and an original track called “Warrior” which will be coming out in the New Year! On the touring side, I’ve accepted some exciting offers for shows next year, so it should be a big 2024!
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