Marc Urselli

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  • 2025 Year-End Review

    2025 was an absolutely amazing and key turning year and a milestone for my life in New York, and I am soooo grateful for all the amazing things that happened this year!

    It started on the right foot when, on January 1st, 2025, I signed a 10-year lease to open my first-ever recording studio in Manhattan: Audio Confidential.
    Exactly 25 years after closing my studio in Italy, I went for it again! At a time when AI is threatening all of the arts, if not our very livelihoods, I’ve decided to do the craziest thing once again: open a place where humans can foster creativity and make music together!
    It was not easy, and it was not cheap, but it brings me huge satisfaction and, most importantly, affords me great creative freedom in pursuing my goal of producing more records.
    After 6 months of hard work, sheetrock, rock wool, fiberglass, and tons of hands-on construction, Audio Confidential opened in Chelsea, just a few blocks from Madison Square Garden, in July.
    But before we get to July, let’s go back to…

    January

    • In January, I produced, recorded, and mixed the new album by Brazilian composer, singer, and songwriter Manu Lafer. Manu has been making albums for 30 years and trusted me to put together a band for him to make a “NY album”, so I got some of my favorite cats like Stephan San Juan and Kenny Grohowski on drums, Mathias Kunzli on percussion, Laurent David on bass and MD duties, Rob Schwimmer on keys and Doug Wieselman on sax and guitar overdubs. We also added a string quartet led by Alicja Smietana with arrangements by Simon Hanes and Adam Minkoff. What an A-list of amazing players! I love bringing people together in a room to make music, and being able to pay them to do so brings me joy!
    • I don’t do a lot of musical theater, but that is precisely why I’ve accepted an offer to mix FOH live sound for “RENT: the Musical” with Orchestra, with MD Cynthia Meng and conductor Sarah Hicks, produced by AMP Worldwide (thank you, Alison & Georgina!). I did the first of these at the beautiful San Diego Rady Shell with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and in January, I’ve mixed one more of those shows in Lincoln, Nebraska.
    • While on this visit to Redneckville, Nebraska, I visited various art museums (as I always do when I am in a new city) and was surprised to find some cool art museums and galleries with great contemporary art and artists. This is how I discovered the works by Iranian-American visual artist Hadieh Shafie, with whom I’ve since become friends and have been talking about collaborations for the future… so thank you, rednecks of Nebraska! ;-)
    • I mixed a show with the prominent Venezuelan rock band Caramelos De Cianuro, and I’ve also mixed my first concert at Madison Square Garden (albeit downstairs), where I got to mix FOH live sound for the “Genshin” concert with koto & full orchestra, produced by Adam Weisman for Black Ink.
    • Later that month, I flew to Los Angeles to mix FOH live sound for the Grammy Premiere Ceremony with the amazing MD and Producer Cheche Alara, which is always one of the highlights of the year for me and a great way to spend my birthday too! This was my fifth year mixing at the Grammy Awards!
    • This year my birthday felt truly special because some of my best LA friends ame together for me and organized a private tour of the new Les Paul Museum (set to open later in March) and then a beutiful italian dinner with Village Studio manager Tina Morris, EastWest studio manager Candace Stewart, Rachel Ludeman, Laurel Stearns, William Garrett and Glenn Max aka Vanderwolf.
    • While in LA, I produced one of my favorite sessions of the entire year at the Village Studios: the new album by Rocco De Luca and his amazing ensemble – Slash (of Guns’n’Roses) played on a few tunes, and the album is supposed to come out in 2026 on the new Sho-Bud record label. I am super proud of this record and of how it came out. It’s one of the most beautiful albums I’ve ever worked on, and it’s one of my highlights of 2025 for sure! Side Note: I bought a Fender Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar from Kraftwerk Florian Schneider’s auction later in the year, so this is a nice coincidence!
    • January is always FULL of concerts thanks to the amazing Winter Jazz Festival (thanks Brice!) and Global Fest in NYC (too many to list) but I’ve also attended performances by The Klezmatics and La Manga @ Sony Hall, Tanya Tagaq @ PAC, Joseph Keckler @ Joe’s Pub, Marius Van Der Brink @ Terremoto (which for a moment there became my favorite new jazz club in the Village and where I made a new friend in Richard Agudelo), Lorinc @ Drom and soooo many others!

    Februray

    • In February, I finished mixing and producing the new album by Hungarian trumpet player and composer Lorinc.
    • February was the Newvelle Records recording sessions month! I’ve been recording and mixing albums for Newvelle for 10 years this year, and it’s been 40+ records, what a run! This year I got to work on new albums by pianist, composer, artistic director, producer, and owner of Newvelle Elan Mehler, saxophonist Loren Stillman, and Canadian trumpet player Ingrid Jensen (featuring the great George Coleman on a few tracks!), German bassist Martin Wind and (the highlight of the series for me) the new duo album of Icelandic bassist Skúli Sverrisson & Bill Frisell (the follow-up to the wonderful “Strata” duo album I recorded and mixed 7-8 years ago).
    • The month started with a concert at Carnegie Hall with Claudia Acuna, whose last album I produced. It’s always great when I get to mix live sound for people I record or mix, or produce in the studio, and Claudia definitely deserves to have her Carnegie debut!
    • I then flew to London and worked for 10 days in the beautiful 5dB Studios with producer Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and the band Tankus. The album sounds phenomenal and came out in October on the 5dB record label (Thanks Gus Robertson!).
    • February concert highlights included: Jack White @ Irving Plaza, Yurida @ United Palace, Rob Schwimmer @ Joe’s Pub, Zoh Amba @ The Owl, Puzzled Panthers @ Bowery Electric, and more…

    March

    • Between the initial Tankus mixing session (at the end of February) and the mix revisions (in the middle of March), I was able to squeeze in a snow week on the Swiss and French Alps snowboarding, so when I showed up at the mix revision session, I was in full mountain gear with snow technical clothing and a mountain backpack! It’s always important to find the right balance of business and pleasure! ;-)
    • I then flew back to New York to mix Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra Carnegie Hall debut… In order to make this Carnegie show, I had to skip a show rehearsal in California (luckily I know great engineers everywhere and got my friend Jon Wubbena Jr on it!) and then catch a 5 am flight to California right after Carnegie and go straight to the show day, but it was totally worth it to be there for Steven and his crew of amazing musicians! I’ve mixed in both halls at Carnegie before, but it was nice to be a part of two artists’ Carnegie debuts (in the same quarter of the year, nonetheless!), and I love anything Steve has got his hands in!!!
    • While in New York, I got to record new albums and tracks with Colombian pianist Holman Alvarez, Patti Smith guitarist, composer, and writer Lenny Kaye working on his new/first solo album with pianist Matthew Shipp, NY underground gender fluid metal band MZZTR, and many others…
    • One last “RENT: The Musical” with orchestra gig in Costa Mesa, California, where I also did a little video shoot with Audeze headphones and my man Chris Berens to launch the new closed-back S20 headphones (which Audio Confidential is now fully equipped with).
    • The end of March is now dedicated every year to the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. It has become my absolute favorite festival in the US, and after having been there twice with John Zorn and once with the Silk Road Ensemble, this was my first year actually working for the festival itself and mixing most of the shows at the Bijou Theater.
    • Before Big Ears, I also did a master class on recording and mixing at the unpronounceable Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, TN, with my dear friend and inspiring, dedicated professor, Mischa Goldman.
    • Without counting the dozens of concerts I’ve seen and mixed at Big Ears (thanks Ashley!), other March concerts I’ve attended included George Coleman @ Birdland, Kraftwerk @ Kings Theater, DakhaBrakha @ LPR, Dave Harrington’sDarkside @ Brooklyn Steel, Mark Giuliana @ LPR, Anoushka Shankar @ Town Hall, and more…

    April

    • Last year I flew from Venice Italy to Knoxville (which took 3 flights!), this year only 2 flights to get from Knoxville to Mexico and so April started busy and strong with another masterclass on mixing, this time at the Soundcheck Expo music conference  (organized by Natalia Urbano and her dad with the help of my dear friend Cesar Rosas) in Mexico City. This conference was so much fun, and I got to hang out with my buddies and esteemed colleagues Cesar Rosas, Nick Launey, Josh Rogosin, and Ettore Grenci, who all did masterclasses there as well. I love going to Mexico, and this turned out to be the first of at least 3 visits this year alone!
    • In April, I also did studio sessions with American singer Martha Redbone, Israeli sax player Yoni Kretzmer, Haitian-American singer Malou Beauvoir (whom I met through my friend Annie Ohayon and her beautiful concert series Annie O Music Live at PAC), and many others…
    • I mixed FOH for the Little Kids Rock (now known as Music Will) benefit concert (with my buddy Marty Yee), which was held at the beautiful but terrible-sounding Gotham Hall, featuring stars like Wyclef Jean, Sara Bareilles, Jackson Browne, and Kristin Chenoweth.
    • I also mixed FOH live sound and provided a full PA and crew for American musician Nick Hakim at First Unitarian Church for his two shows there, presented by LPR (Le Poisson Rouge). I love working with/for LPR Presents because they are my favorite venue in NYC, and it is owned and run by a dear friend who’s a musician (David), without any ties to corporations or the evil empire which shall remain unnamed, and with the best booking agent I know (Brett rules). It truly is for musicians, by musicians!
    • April’s best concert was certainly Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with St. Vincent opening at Barclays (I also drove to Philly to see Nick Cave a second time!!!), but another great one was Meshuggah at MSG Theater, and of course, many others, because I always try to see at least one concert per night!

    May

    • More sessions with Martha Redbone for her new album, as well as a full tracking session with American jazz pianist Kerry Politzer, whose album I recorded, mixed, and mastered, and came out later in the year.
    • Sessions with Paola Prestini and Jeffrey Zeigler (ex Kronos Quartet) at National Sawdust for their new albums.
    • This month I also flew to Berlin to attend the SuperBooth conference, a conference about electronic instruments, modular synths, and all sorts of interesting new technology… The craziest thing here was that Devo was playing in NY the night before, and I had never seen them and really wanted to. My friends Scott Sommer and Adam Romanowski, and I all went to the Devo concert in their car, and I booked a parking spot in a garage right next to the theater. I’ve booked the LAST flight out from JFK (which was on Air France at 1 am) and then left my suitcase in their car’s trunk. We all went to Devo, and I then left during the encore to go straight to JFK Airport and catch a flight to Berlin so I could make the Neumann party the next afternoon, and, mind over matter, I actually made the party (even though Air France lost my bag)!!!
    • While in Berlin, I’ve met with my friend Boris Kummerer from Neumann and Valerie Fröhlich from Lewitt and checked out amazing museums, picked up some vintage Neumann condenser microphones for my new studio, and had a meeting with Blixa Bargeld (Einsturzende Neubauten) to talk about our ongoing collaboration. 
    • I’ve closed the month out with an orchestra live sound gig in Boston, where I mixed FOH for The Witcher with orchestra, a video game/movie series I’ve never played or seen, with musicians from Poland who composed the original soundtrack and played traditional old instruments.
    • May always starts with Long Play Festival weekend, where I saw tons of artists. Besides Devo @ Kings Theater, I also saw Teen Mortgage @ TV Eye, Ministry and Die Krupps @ Kings Theater (where I met my new friend and ex-Die Krupps Rudi Esch), Paradise Lost @ LPR, Paul Cantelon and more…

    June

    • June was an important month for me because on June 1st at BAM, me and my dear friend Helga Davis, organized a record release party for the RAMONES REDUX tribute album that I’ve recorded, mixed, and produced in 2022 and 2023 for Magnetic Eye Records, which came out later that week on June 8th (thanks Jadd for seeing it through!). The concert was fantastic thanks to the great house band (more on that later) and all the guests and singers who graced the stage (such as Luis Accorsi, Tammy Faye Starlite, and Eugene Hütz of Gogol Bordello). The album was a huge endeavor and accomplishment because it featured 60 artists playing 30 songs by The Ramones done in unique and original versions, different than the originals, and where on every song at least two people (who often never met before) collaborated. It was all done in true Hal Willner style because I learned from the best!
    • The same month, I also did some fantastic sessions with the amazing jazz singer Nicole Zuaritis and her amazing band for her new album, produced by the great Larry Klein…
    • After that I flew to Los Angeles for some sessions at the Village, but while I was on the plane I texted several friends in LA to let them know I was coming (I’m last minute like that!) and my dear friend Laurel Stearns invited me to drive to Joshua Tree to attend Rancho De La Luna’s recording studio owner Dave Catchings’ birthday with live music by Dave himself with members of Kyuss and great friends such as the amazing musician and human Alain Johaness… I literally landed from NYC in LA at 2 pm, got my rental car, picked up Laurel, and off we drove into the sunset (not romantically, but literally!) of the amazing desert… and then we drove back right after (at this point I had been up for 20-22 hours)… testing the limits of my body once again! ;-)
    • During my stay in LA, I got to record with instrument creator, musician, and composer Alexandra Fierra and her crew at the Village. Alexandra is the inventor of the Demon Box (manufactured and produced by Eternal Research), an amazing instrument that generates sounds from a magnetic field. The sessions at the Village were unique and featured the most amount of DI boxes I’ve ever used in one session (more than 30 DI’s!!!).
    • After LA, I flew to Puglia in Italy for the yearly MEDIMEX festival, the coolest music festival in Italy. The headliners this year were the incredible Massive Attack, Primal Scream, and St. Vincent, and during the festival, I held two workshops/masterclasses focusing on the beginnings of my career in Puglia, Italy, where, at the age of 17, I opened my first recording studio (Maelstrom studio).
    • After Medimex, I flew to Bologna, Italy, where I recorded and produced the new album by the amazing jazz/metal trio ZU at the historical Bologna studio Fonoprint. I’ve been a fan of Zu ever since their “Carboniferous” album on Ipecac, and the new lineup with their new drummer is absolutely bonkers! I went all out on the production of this album and pulled out all the stops, no holds barred! It’s definitely the most creative and unique progressive/technical jazz-metal album I’ve ever heard (let alone produced!!!), and it comes out in January on House of Mythology (the record label of the band Ulver in Norway).
    • While in Italy, I did another master class in Livorno, Tuscany, and while in Tuscany, I spent a few days in Florence, one of my favorite cities in Italy (except for all the hordes of tourists)… My biggest regret is not flying to Birmingham to see the final Black Sabbath show… To be honest, I didn’t think Ozzy would show, but I still regret not taking the leap of faith… I have few regrets in life, but this will go on that list!
    • Concerts in June included Nine Inch Nails in Milan, Italy, the Vision festival @ Roulette, Khanate & Mick Barr @ LPR, Toninho Horta @ NuBlu, Elysian Fields @ the Moroccan Lounge in LA, Ringo Starr @ The Beacon, Dan Weiss @ NuBlu… and I was bummed to miss Paul Simon’s various nights in NY… It just didn’t work out, and believe me, I tried!

    July

    • I flew back from Italy on July 4, in time for the fireworks (not that I cared for them), and then on July 9 and 10, I mixed FOH for two shows by pop star Rita Ora (thanks to my touring buddy Niccoló Antonietti). This is not my usual gig or cup of tea (mostly tracks, no live musicians), but at least the girl can sing, and I got to mix a show under the Brooklyn Bridge, which was a great location. It’s always good to be outside of one’s comfort zone, that is when one learns new things!
    • In the middle of July, another MAJOR milestone of my career and of this year took place: on July 12th, I’ve held the first session at my new studio AUDIO CONFIDENTIAL, in Chelsea, Manhattan. This was a long time coming and took 6 months to build out. The studio has a NEVE Genesys console as its centerpiece and features a live room with a Yamaha baby grand piano, a drum booth with two Ludwig drum sets, a vocal booth, and an iso cab. The studio came out amazing, and I’m super happy to be able to work out of there, although I will continue to work out of here AND out of EastSide Sound, depending on budget, size of band, backline requirements etc… My heartfelt thanks go out to Reed Turchi (of Second Take studio) for alerting me to the vacancy and for introducing me to my new business partner in this venture, Chris Benham (previously of Big Orange Sheep studios).
    • As the first session at Audio Confidential, I recorded the punk band Toxic Tito and explained to them it would just be a jam for me to figure out the studio connections and everything else… Toxic Tito is Venezuelan singer Luis Accorsi, who’s a dear friend, and his project is an ever-changing cast of characters. For this session, he used the same guys whom I had hired to play the Ramones Redux record release party at BAM a month before, and, sure enough, they’ve now become a band, played 6 great new songs that Luis wrote, and released a new EP, which I then mixed and mastered and came out later in the year… I LOVE to be a connector of people and talent, and nothing makes me happier and prouder than to see new friendships and connections being made through music. Thanks to the RAMONES, Luis is now friends and a collaborator with Chris Enriquez (drums), Cory Bonfiglio (bass), David Nagler (guitar and piano), and Amir Mankovski (sax).
    • This month, I also tracked the new album of Korean pianist Mijung Lim with special guest Nadje Noordhuis on trumpet at EastSide Sound. I’ve also mixed that same album, and it came out later in the year on a Korean label.
    • July concert highlights: “Weird Al” Yankovic @ MSG, Pogues @ Terminal 5 (with James Sclavunos on drums),Reed Turchi @ Bar Lunatico (thanks to whom I found the Audio Confidential studio space), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ The Beacon, Linkin Park @ Barclay, and many more…

    August

    • I never totally unplug, but I always turn down work and take August off to go to Italy and enjoy the sea, the food, and the summer there. However, this year I actually did take ONE job while there and flew to Verona to record the new album of Zoe Pia, an Italian new music / contemporary classical composer, clarinet player, and player of the Launeddas, a traditional Sardinian instrument. We recorded at Sotto Il Mare studio (grazie Luca!), a beautiful, large room with an analog console. I’ve then mixed the album in NYC, which comes out on Caligola Records (grazie Claudio!) in 2026. I’ve loved spending a few days in Verona, and I’ll be back there in 2026 to mix FOH for the Winter Olympics ceremony (more on that on next year’s summary ;-))!!!
    • The only concert I saw in NY this month was the night before flying to Italy, and it was quite amazing: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard w/ Sarah Hicks conducting an orchestra backing them at Forest Hills Stadium. That said I saw a TON of concerts in Italy as well, thanks to many music festivals that happen in Puglia every year (such as Locus Festival, Farm Festival, Rozz Festival): Morrisey, UR, Calibro 35, Afterhours, Fearless Flyers, Mogwai, Almamegretta, the super talented David Krakauer MD-ing the hell out of the biggest concert in Puglia (the Notte della Taranta), and many others…

    September

    • September was another huge milestone for me because it was the first time I had an art exhibit with my name as the main artist in a major art museum. The exhibit is called “Palpitations” and opened on Sept 4th at the San Diego Museum of Art and featured my collaboration with incredible Mexican surrealist painter Marianela De La Hoz. Marianela and I have been friends for a few years now, and over the course of 2025, we’ve created a body of work that consisted of her painting on speaker cones and then me creating sound design inspired by her paintings and played through the very paintings, via the speaker cones. The exhibition is on view until February 2026, thanks to the hard work of curator Anita Feldman, Executive Director Roxana Velásquez, and their entire team!
    • After San Diego, I drove to Northern California on an adventure with my buddy Alexander Burke, where I picked up a microphone collection I’ve acquired from the amazing archivist, distant-unbeknownst-mentor, and new friend Stan Coutant. I am now using this collection at my new studio, and I will use part of it to open a microphone museum, which I am planning to start in New York, hopefully next year.
    • From Los Angeles, I then flew to Mexico to mix FOH for two shows by the amazing Mexican singer/songwriter Natalia Lafourcade at the Auditorio Nacional of Mexico City, produced by my dear friend and musical adventure buddy, the immensely talented Cheche Alara (and with a great crew with Benjamin Castro on Monitors). Natalia is absolutely amazing, she’s the voice of the people of Mexico! I’ve worked with her previously at Carnegie Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl, where she played two sold-out shows backed by her band and the LA Phil, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. This time she was playing in her own country, AND she was 7 months pregnant, so she sold out 3 nights at the Auditorio Nacional, the largest theater in Mexico City, which seats 8000 people. The show was also recorded and filmed and broadcast on YouTube and other places.
    • Back in New York, I’ve provided PA and production for two solo shows by the singer of the Australian band Vacations at First Unitarian Church, organized by Le Poisson Rouge, and as always, I did so under the supervision of the fantastic LPR production manager Aaron Sickler and with my trusted crew guys (Rocky Russo, Matt Kirschling, and Cole Flowers) who all worked/started/interned under me at EastSide Sound.
    • This month, at the new Audio Confidential studio, I also mixed the new album by violinist and composer Dana Lyn and did sessions with Brazilian jazz legend Toninho Horta.
    • September music shows included: Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson & Family and Sheryl Crow @ PNC Banks Arena in New Jeresey, Devendra Banhart @ National Sawdust, Wolfe Alice @ Paramount, Eric Clapton @ MSG, Knife Thrower @ Main Drag, Russian Circles @ Warsaw, Ganavya @ First Baptist Church (a wonderful concert), the awesome CBGB Festival with Iggy Pop, Jack White, The Damned, Johnny Marr, Lunachicks, Marky Ramone, Cro-Mags and others, David Byrne @ The Beacon and so many more… the fall is always full of great shows in NYC!

    October

    • October started with me mixing a live show of one of my best friends, Karou Watanabe, and his multi-cultural ensemble Bloodlines at Joe’s Pub on Oct 1st.
    • The next day, I flew to San Francisco to do a show with Japanese electronic music artist Coppé. Coppé is a great friend and amazing artist, beaming with positivity and creativity, whom I have actually met through the above-mentioned Karou! This is also one of the super rare times where I actually play something in the show, because for Copp,é I play keys on top of her tracks.
    • From San Francisco, I flew back to Mexico City for the third time this year, and while down there, I mixed the third sold-out show by Natalia Lafourcade at the Auditorio Nacional, now 8 months pregnant!
    • From Mexico City, I then flew to the UNESCO World Heritage mountain town of Guanajuato, in Northern Mexico, where I was asked to mix and co-curate the opening week of the Cervantino Festival, the longest-running festival in Mexico, with music, dance, folk art, and more. As part of my co-curatorial duties, I booked the UK arranger and trumpet player Sam Eastmond, who played an amazing show of John Zorn tunes arranged for a big band horn ensemble on the main stage of Cervantino. I also booked Kaoru Watanabe’s Bloodlines ensemble (a different one from the one at Joe’s Pub).
    • After Cervantino, I flew back to Mexico City (4th time now!) and mixed the opening night of the 47th Manuel Enriquez International Forum of New Music (FIMNME) season at Palacio Bellas Artes, the equivalent of Carnegie Hall in Mexico, an amazing theater with the largest Tiffany glass window in the world. The opening night consisted of a percussion-only duo piece written by British composer Rebecca Saunders and performed by Mexican percussionist Diego Espinosa & Argentinian percussionist Ramón Gardellaand, and their palette, range, depth, and variety of sounds were absolutely unique and sublime.
    • While in Mexico, I’ve also taught a recording & mixing masterclass at the SAE institute in Mexico City (thanks Bob and Francisco!), something I love to do every time I am down there.
    • At my return in New York, I mixed the San Juan Hill: A New York Story show at Lincoln Center, a beautiful jazz band + orchestra show featuring composer, MD, and trumpet player Etienne Charles… I am doing more and more shows at Lincoln Center and love working there, thanks to the creative vision of curator Jordana Leigh and the whole team!
    • This month I started mixing a new live album in the studio with Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) and Leila Bordreuil…
    • October is another month that’s always full of great live shows, many of which I missed cause I was in Mexico for so long, but I managed to catch: the Australian band Parcels @ Forest Hills Stadium (whose manager Andrea is actually somebody I met as a student at SAE Mexico! …another full circle moment that makes me proud!), the Raga Festival @ Pioneer Works, Autechre @ Brooklyn Steel mixed by my buddy Chris Fullard), Hania Rani @ Pioneer Works, St. Vincent @ Cafe Carlyle (third time this year, but special to see her playing solo!), Biohazard and Onyx @ Warsaw (a great walk down memory lane!), a Spectacular Night of Qawwali, Sufi and Gospel Music @ Town Hall, the amazing NY NIGHT TRAIN 20th Annual Halloween Haunted Hop w/ Sun Ra, Pharmakon, Jonathan Toubin, Martin Rev and many others @ Knockdown Center, something I plan to do every year from now on! Hell yeah, what a night!

    November

    • November is the Unsound Festival in New York. Last year I got to mix Sunn O))) at Unsound at Lincoln Center, while this year I mixed a show by Aleksandra Słyż & Sinfonietta Cracovia and other Polish artists.
    • At the same time I was mixing this show at Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall, just a few blocks north at Lincoln Center AMC movie theater there was the premiere of Lynne Ramsay’ new movie “Die My Love” starring Jennifer Lawrence and with music performed and co-written by George Vjestica (of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and Raife Burchell and mixed by yours truly.
    • This month in the studio, I produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered the new album by Flemish/German jazz singer Marie Paule-Franke, for whom I put together a band of NY players, as I had done for Manu Lafer.
    • I’ve mixed Brian Carpenter’s wonderful Ghost Train Orchestra concert at Roulette.
    • Other studio session included Polish drummer Adam Golebiewski with San Francisco elecronic artist Evicshen at Audio Confidential, US trombonist Brian Drye (whose new double album I recorded at EastSide Sound and then mixed and mastered at Audio Confidential), Iraqi American santur (Persian hammered dulcimer) and trumpet player Amir El Saffar at EastSide Sound, American pianist/singer/composer/songwriter Joseph Keckler at Audio Confidential, Brazilian singer/songwriter Ze Ibarra at Audio Confidential, jazz sax player Javon Jackson at EastSide Sound, Frank London for a new film score which we recorded at EastSide Sound and mixed at Audio Confidential.
    • I also mixed FOH live sound for a few other cool shows, such as Sophia Brous’ new Sophia Fiora character exploration at Joe’s Pub, Brandon Rosen at Fount Studios, and Ze Ibarra at my friend Jarrett Wetherell’s Glasshaus (a show I also recorded for possible future vinyl release).
    • Live music highlights included John Cale @ Lincoln Center, the Cyro Baptista 75th Birthday concert @ Rose Theater Lincoln Center, Earth @ LPR, Tank & the Bangas @ Blue Note, Django Festival @ Sony Hall, Jim Jarmusch & Carter Logan’s duo Sqürl @ the Met, Joel Ross @ Rizzoli Bookstore (my favorite Sunday afternoon concert series curated by my friend Luigi Santosuosso of Mondo Jazz), Mick Harvey, Ed Kuepper & Jim White @ TV Eye, the Saints 73-78 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, the epic Tom Morello show with special guests Vernon Reid, Jesse Malin, The Nighborhood Kids and others @ Irving Plaza, Arooj Aftab @ Blue Note, Elysian Fields 30-year anniversary show @ LPR, Laurie Anderson, Marc Ribot, John Zorn & others @ the Roulette benefit, Justin Adams & Mauro Durante @ Joe’s Pub, Blood Orange @ Brooklyn Steel, Kayhan Kalhor @ Town Hall, Greg Cohen @ The Ear Inn and so many more…

    December

    • The month of December started with a wonderful studio session with bassist Greg Cohen, guitarist Doug Wieselman, and the amazing Laurie Anderson at Audio Confidential for a new benefit album for the Hopi tribe/nation.
    • Right after that session, Greg, Doug, and I travelled down to Philadelphia for a long-awaited concert that was programmed and cancelled a few times before: it started as a tribute concert for my dear friend and mentor Hal Willner, but became a concert that honored Hal as well as one of Hal’s inspirations: comedian and singer Allan Sherman. The show took place at the Weitzman jewish museum of Philadelpha and was called “Glory Glory Allan Sherman” and featured a lof of Hal’s family and friends, including Rodney Anonymous of the The Dead Milkmen band, Robert Smigel a.k.a. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog which (who?) delieved a killer performance, Terry Adams of NRQB, actress/singer Chloe Webb (China Beach, Shameless), Janine Nichols, John Kruth, Eric Bazilian (The Hooters) and the incredible 101-years old Marshall Allen of Sun RA. The show was organized by one of Hal’s friends and arrangers Steve Weisberg who was also MD on the show and had an amazing house band of great NY musicians (including Hal’s other trusted arragner Steven Bernstein) and great Philly musicians (such as drummer/producer Andy Kravitz) and was filmed and recorded so hopefully there will be a movie or footage of this down the line…
    • Since I rarely go to Philadelphia, while there I also visited Vince Pupillo’s MMT (Museum of Music Technology), one hour outside of Philly, a place that absolutely blew my mind!!!! Spanning over 30’000 square feet, this place features the largest collection of synthesizers, keyboards, organs, electronic instruments, and guitar/bass amps I’ve ever seen. Absolutely incredible!
    • I mixed FOH live sound at Kings Theater in Brooklyn for the first time for a show called “Waiting to Exhale”, which was a movie from 1995 directed by Forest Whitaker and starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett (among others). The house band was a killer group of musicians with Adam Blackstone as bassist and MD, and there were a bunch of amazing singers (such as Andra Day, Deborah Cox, Tamar Braxton, Sheléa, The Amours, Kay Manée) singing the songs from the movie. Another great Black Ink production!
    • I also mixed FOH for a jazz/metal show at LPR (Le Poisson Rouge) featuring Imperial Triumphant with a 6-piece horn section, Kilter, and Ed Rosenberg III’s Jersey Band: a show where every band featured horns and horn arrangements, super cool and certainly not your average metal show! Side note: Kilter and Imperial Triumphant share the same amazing drummer (Kenny Grohowski) collaborated on a song for the Ramones Redux album that came out in June!
    • Other studio sessions this month included: Albanian cellist Rubin Kodheli and his new project at EastSide Sound, Hungarian singer Nikolett Pankovits at EastSide Sound, American singer/songwriter Austin Brookner at Audio Confidential and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth at Audio Confidential playing guitar and singing on a track for Italian drummer, singer and songwriter Evita Polidoro (whose album for Sony Music Italy I am mixing).
    • To close the year with great concerts and live music I caught one of the 25 Sam Smith residency concerts @ Warsaw, Yamatzuka Eye of Boredoms w/ amazing visuals by C.O.L.O @ Powerhouse Brooklyn, Gwenifer Raymond @ Public Records, Marc Ribot’s “Map of Blue City” record release party (an album I’ve worked on years prior together with Hal Willner) @ LPR, David J solo acoustic show @ the Slipper Room (another artist whose album I produced and will come out in 2026), Jerskin Fendrix @ LPR, Mark Kozelek aka Sun Kil Moon @ Sony Hall…

    Today is December 28th, and I am writing this year-end review on a plane from the Canary Islands, where I went to hide away from Xmas. In an attempt to never forget the relationship with nature and the land, I spent a week in the forest, hiking trails, and walking along beaches… sadly it was never windy enough for kitesurfing, but I’m sure I’ll be back in this archipelago at some point to do just that!

    As I look back at how many words I’ve written to summarize this year, I can’t help but think about how lucky I am to live the life I live and how grateful I am that I am alive and healthy and able to do the work I do with the focus, intensity, determination, passion, and drive that I have! The very last three days of 2025, I got violently ill with some kind of virus that had me bedridden (and unable to party) for almost 3 full days, and so I was reminded once again how important health is and how lucky we are when we just have health alone! Thanks to my good health, I really do a lot, and I pack it all in very tightly in a year, but it makes me feel happy when I am able to do so much… It’s inspiring to be able to make so much art, be present, witness to the process, and be able to grow from it spiritually and mentally! Art is the most beautiful thing!


    Looking ahead on my calendar app (without which I would not be able to live!) I can see that 2026 is shaping up to be an equally, if not more, busy year with recurring appointments such as Big Ears Festival in Tennessee, Medimex Festival in Puglia, Cervantino Festval and Soundcheck Expo in Mexico but also some new major milestones in my career: for example in 2026 I will be mixing the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and the Para Olympics at the Arena of Verona in Italy in February!!!

    And if everything goes according to plan, 2026 will also be the year I will expand my operation to help foster the creative community of New York City… But let me not jinx it, more about that later…

    Last thing I’ll say is this:
    new website online at www.marcurselli.com

    Stay tuned!!!

  • 2023 Year in Review

    I want to thank JG Thirlwell for inviting me to submit my 2023 Year in Review. I had never done one of these before and it’s been a fun challenge to go through my calendar and social media to remember and realize how much I was able to pack into this year! Selecting and writing down all of these things also helped me further grasp and understand how tremendously privileged and lucky I am to be able to do what I love all year around, year after year, and to live my life to the fullest and according to my own wishes and my own design. I don’t take this lightly and I don’t take it for granted. I am very aware that it comes from hard work, limitless passion, and unwavering dedication, not just luck and good fortune, but nevertheless, I am grateful every single day for this life and for being healthy, being able to do all of this, and for all the people in my path who trust me, inspire me, support me, challenge me, and enlighten me!

    Dont miss JGs very own 2023 Year in Review and that of many other illustrious guests and colleagues ones which you can read along with mine at JGs blog at: https://jgthirlwell.tumblr.com/
    or in the Link in Bio or at the following direct link: https://www.tumblr.com/jgthirlwell/738261455669968896/2023-year-in-review?source=share

    Or keep reading here to read just mine:

    STUDIO SESSIONS, ALBUMS & PRODUCTIONS

    When compiling this list, it really dawned on me how fortunate I am to be working with such incredible talents and how privileged I am to be able to witness, participate, and contribute to the creation of exceptional works such as the following:

    – Producing, Recording & Mixing sessions with David J of Bauhaus, Norwegian artist Ihsahn (of Emperor) & Toby Driver (of Kayo Dot), John Stanier (of Battles), Brian Chase (of Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Restless Spirit, Vicki Peterson (of the Bangles), John Cowsill (of the Cowsill Family and The Beach Boys touring band) and many others for my new RAMONES tribute album to come out next year on Magnetic Eye records

    – Producing, Recording and Mixing a cover of Soundgarden‘s song “4th of July” with my doom metal / throat singing project SteppenDoom for the Magnetic Eye album “Soundgarden (Redux) and featuring Matt Cameron of Soundgarden themselves on drums

    – seeing the release of Brian Carpenter’s “Ghost Train Orchestra & Kronos Quartet – The Music of Moondog” album featuring Kronos Quartet (which I recorded at EastSide Sound) and many other amazing guest artists

    – Producing, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering a live album by Brazilian artists Z Ibarra, Dora Morelenbaum, and Julia Mestre of Bala Desejo for Glasshaus Presents & Tower Records

    – seeing the HBO release of John Luries Painting with John new season where all the music was recorded & mixed by me and seeing my face briefly on TV

    – Producing and Recording a remote session in an old church in Italy with Adriano Viterbini and Vincenzo Vasi for a project that will come out sometime next year hopefully

    – Mixing new albums by Glenn Max Vanderwolf (produced by Dennis Martin), by Bloodmist (Toby Driver, Mario Diaz De Leon, Jeremiah Cymermann), and by Ikue Mori & Zeena Parkins at EastSide Sound fully utilizing the analog console and the analog outboard gear (something nowadays is more and more rare)

    – Recording & Mixing 6 new albums by John Zorn this year alone, which brings my total JZ count to over 120 albums, and which as of this year can finally be heard on streaming platforms as well!

    – Recording and Producing a new album by Marco Cappelli‘s Italian-inspired band IDR at EastSide Sound in NYC and then going to Rome, Italy to overdub trombone and vocals with famed contemporary Neapolitan singer Raiz

    – Producing, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering 2 new albums by incognito jazz / blues artist Russell Orr with legendary Brian Marsella & Brian Mitchell on keys, respectively

    – Recording, Mixing, and Mastering two new albums by Jessica Pavone and her trio

    – Producing, Recording, Mixing and Mastering a “We Are the World”-type track for NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs with a song composed by Captain Beefheart / Jeff Buckley’s guitarist Gary Lucas and 10 other musicians from various parts of the world playing their local instruments and singing in their mother’s tongue

    – Recording and Mixing the new album by Italian singer/songwriter Beppe Voltarelli, produced by Simone Giuliani, which took second place in Italy’s Premio Tenco

    – Recording a new film score by composer Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin & Wood) and arranged by Simon Hanes (of Tredici Bacci)

    – Producing, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering contemporary classical music sessions commissioned by Miller Theater and Columbia University with artists such as Laura Barger & Julia Den Boer, Miguel Zenon, Matt Mitchell & Miles Okazaki, Russell Greenberg & Vicky Chow

    – Recording new albums by contemporary classical/jazz musicians such as Miles Okazaki, Brian Drye, Anna Webber & Matt Mitchell, and others

    – Recording new albums by amazing Latin Jazz artists such as Gili Lopes, Homan Alvarez, Rodrigo Recabarren, Benjamin Furman

    SOUND DESIGN GIGS & LIVE SOUND MIXING GIGS

    Similarly to the list above, I am eternally grateful for the fact that all these wonderfully talented people trust me with designing, mixing, and amplifying their sound so that the rest of the world can truly and fully experience their art in the most complete, sonically articulated, detailed and full spectrum way there is! Some of these highlights include:

    – Mixing a 90-piece orchestra + 90-piece choir playing the score to Stanley Kubrick “2001: A Space Odyssey” live-to-picture  conducted by Brad Lubman in the Auditorio Nacional of Mexico City to a sold-out crowd of 10’000 people 

    – Mixing the Grammy Award Premiere Ceremony in Los Angeles and being there to amplify and mix the immensely talented house band led by Cheche Alara and the performances by musicians such as Samara Joy, Anoushka Shankar, Arooj Aftab, and more…

    – Mixing the Robbie Robertson tribute concert & memorial organized by Martin Scorsese at Village Studios in Los Angeles with artists such as Jackson Browne, Jason Isbell, Rocco DeLuca, Citizen Cope, Angela McCluskey, Blake Mills and Jim Keltner

    – Mixing the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony concert at the White House with artists such as Dionne Warwick, Samara Joy, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, St. Vincent, and others.

    – Sound Designing and Mixing the world premiere of “Perle Noire: Meditations for Josphine” at the DNO Dutch National Opera House in Amsterdam, a beautiful performance/concert/opera directed by Peter Sellars, composed by Tyshawn Sorey and performed by Tyshawn Sorey and ICE International Contemporary Ensemble with soprano Julia Bullock

    – One of my sound design pieces inspired by Icelandic nature sounds and folklore was presented at the “Le Son 7” Art Gallery in Madrid between the 3rd and the 13th of May 2023, after it was presented the year before in London and will be presented in January 2024 in New York

    – mixing 12 shows by John Zorn in 2 days at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville TN

    – mixing more shows by John Zorn to celebrate his 70th birthday in places like Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Miller Theater in New York, Reggio Emilia and Modena in Italy, Philharmonie in Paris, November Music Festival in Den Bosch Netherlands and Mexico City

    – Mixing Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra live at Roulette with special guests David Byrne, Karen Mantler, Joan As Policewoman AND doing so right after I mixed another matinee gig earlier in the day with the New York Choral Society

    – working sound for the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with musical guests Lizzo and David Byrne

    – Mixing Claudia Acuna at Lincoln Center

    – mixing Idina Menzel‘s performance in Trafalgar Square in London for Gay Pride 2023

    – playing keys (something I almost never ever do!) for Japanese electronic artist Copp‘s first-ever performance in Italy

    – mixing my first ever K-pop gig in Times Square NY

    – teaching Mixing Workshops at SAE in Mexico City and MOB Studios in Rome, Italy

    RECORDS

    In no particular order, here are some of my favorite records of 2023 that I was not involved with but I wish I had been ;-)

    – Anohni and the Johnsons “My Back Was a Bridge for you to Cross”

    – Lil Yachty “Let’s Start Here”

    – Boygenius “The Record”

    – Ryuichi Sakamoto “12”

    – Jaimie Branch “Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))”

    – Arooj Aftab / Vijay Iyer / Shahzad Ismaily “Love in Exile”

    – Peter Gabriel “I/O”

    – Hania Rani “Ghosts”

    – Meshell Ndegeocello “The Omnichord Real Book”

    – Bill Frisell “Four”

    – Ambrose Akinmusire, Bill Frisell, Herlin Riley “Owl song”

    – Porcupine Tree “Closure / Continuation”

    – Dr. John “The Brightest Smile in Town”

    – Spencer Zahn “Statues II”

    – Meshuggah “Chaosphere 25th anniversary 2023 Remastered edition”

    – Ennio Morricone “Segreto Songbook 1962-1973”

    – Sin Fang, Kjartan Holm “Angakok”

    MUSIC SHOWS

    It’s always hard for me to recount the shows I’ve seen because I usually see about 300-500 shows every year. LPR (Le Poisson Rouge) definitely shines through as my favorite venue and the one I’ve visited most often! Here are some of the highlights of 2023:

    – Spotlights, Imperial Triumphant, Puzzled Panthers at Saint Vitus

    – “La Splendida”, a heavy metal opera by Laurent David & Kilter at Culture Lab LIC

    – Exotech 3 times, at Public Records, Mark Morris Dance Theater and at LPR

    – Tredici Bacci at least 2-3 times, one of which at Sultan Room

    – John Cale at Paradiso, Amsterdam

    – Plini at Melkweg, Amsterdam

    – Mary Halvorson Quintet at Bimhuis, Amsterdam

    – Thurston Moore at OCCII, Amsterdam

    – Jeff Goldblum at Town Hall

    – Xylorius White at LPR

    – Hal Willner’s Amarcord tribute concert at Roulette

    – Snarky Puppy at Beacon Theater

    – Tim Bernardes at LPR

    – Groa at Taste of Iceland showcase at Pianos

    – JG Thirlwell & Mivos Quartet at National Sawdust

    – Bloodywood at Irving Plaza

    – Hermeto Pascoal twice, at Pioneer Works and LPR

    – Sexmob at Fotografiska

    – Grace Jones at Hammerstein Ballroom

    – Lisa Fisher at Blue Note

    – Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry / Blondie, London

    – Laurie Anderson & SexMob Let X=X at Barbican in London and BAM in Brooklyn

    – The Cult at MEDIMEX festival in Taranto, Italy

    – Tom Morello at MEDIMEX festival in Taranto, Italy

    – Emperor at Kings Theater

    – Ibrahim Malouff at Drom

    – Elan Mehler & Dave Douglas at Fotografiska

    – The Misfits at Prudential Center

    – Oumou Sangare at Brooklyn Bandshell

    – Red Fang at Gramercy Theater

    – The Eagles & Steely Dan at MSG

    – Tammy Faye Starlight at Joe’s Pub

    – Julian Lage at Village Vanguard

    – Mdou Moctar at Summerstage

    – Makaya McCraven at Locus Festival, in Locorotondo Italy

    – Fatoumata Diawara at Locus Festival, in Locorotondo Italy

    – Sisters of Mercy at Cinzella Festival, in Grottaglie Italy

    – SunRa Arkestra at Locus Festival, in Locorotondo Italy

    – Robert Plant at Locus Festival, in Bari Italy

    – Mr. Bungle at Terminal 5

    – Melvins, Boris and all the other amazing bands at Desert Fest at Knockdown Center

    – Front Line Assembly at LPR

    – Peter Gabriel at MSG

    – Empire State Bastard at LPR & St Vitus

    – Cavalera Conspiracy at Irving Plaza

    – Swans at Music Hall of Williamsburg

    – Steven Bernstein w/ Millennial Territory at Dizzy’s

    – Nick Cave & Jonny Greenwood  3 times, twice at Beacon Theater and once at Kings Theater

    – The Mission at LPR

    – Titan to Tychons at NuBlu

    – Dresden Dolls at Bowery Ballroom

    – Robert Glasper‘s Art Blakey tribute at Blue Note

    – Puzzled Panthers at Bowery Electric

    – Ghost Train Orchestra at Roulette

    – Arthur Brown in London

    – The Mongol Khan theater production at the Coliseum in London 

    – 8 Bit Big Band at Sony Hall

    – Bud Spencer Blues Explosion at Monk in Rome Italy

    – plus all the amazing artists I can’t recall individually that I have seen at Winter Jazz Festival, Long Play Festival and Big Ears Festival

    BOOKS

    I am sadly a slow reader and my pile of books on my bedside table is always bigger than the time awake I have when I finally do get to bed, but here are some I have read, or started to read or am planning on starting to read:

    – Kid Congo Powers “Some New Kind Of Kick”

    – Nick Cave & Sen O’Hagan “Faith, Hope and Carnage”

    – Warren Ellis “Nina Simone’s Gum”

    – Rick Rubin “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”

    – Quincy Jones “12 Notes: On Life and Creativity”

    – Quincy Trouple “Miles & Me”

    MUSEUMS

    I try to visit museums in every city I go to, whether I am on tour, working, traveling for pleasure or whatever the reason is… Art is my passion, my love and a way of life…

    – Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain

    – Fundcaio Joan Mir, Barcelona, Spain

    – The Salvador Dali Theater and Museum, Figueres, Spain

    – Salvador Dal House / Fundaci Gala, Cadaqus, Port Lligat, Spain

    – Park Gell, Barcelona, Spain

    – Moco Museum, Barcelona, Spain

    – Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

    – Vermeer Exhibit, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    – Moco Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    – Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    – Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    – Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    – Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    – Art on Paper, New York

    – Frieze, New York

    – Karl Lagerfled “A Line of Beauty”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

    – Yayoi Kusama “Infinity Mirror Rooms”, Tate Modern, London, UK

    – Frida Kahlo & Diego Riviera House & Studio, Mexico City

    – Palacio De Bellas Artes, Mexico City

    – Museo Jumex, Mexico City

    – Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporanea, Mexico City

    – Paul Gugelmann “Poetic Machines”, Aarau, Switzerland

    MOVIES

    There are soooo many movies I still want to / need to see… I love movies but I prioritize work and live music in my life and I will only watch movies on planes, on (very very) rainy days or those rare times when I don’t have a concert on my calendar, so here are a few of those rainy/non-concert films, in no particular order:

    – Killers of the Flower Moon (for the story, the acting and the soundtrack)

    – Equalizer 3 (because aside from its Hollywood-ish story and ending, it’s a realistic look at how organized crime works in Italy)

    – Little Richard: I am Everything (for his story, his character, his music, and his courage!)

    – Psychedelicized: The Electric Circus Stroy (for the amazing portrait of a time that’s past but that changed NYC forever!)

    – American Symphony (for the amazing story, talent, spirit and courage of Jon Batiste)

    – 32 Sounds (because my life is about sound…)

    – Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (because Leonard was an amazing artist and songwriter and singer and so many friends are in this movie)

    – Oppenheimer (because that history is so complex and so divided as the country in which it took place)

    TRAVEL

    Travel is the riches of life! I travel SO MUCH that I am on a plane AT LEAST once a month and usually it is to an international location… This year was no different, so I’ve decided to only list 12 trips for this section:

    – January: Ringing in the year in a medieval tower in Barcelona and spending the first 4 days of the new year trying all the tapas bars, restaurants, and food stands this beautiful city has to offer and seeing the Sagrada Familia cathedral for the 3rd time in my life

    – February: Living in Amsterdam for 3 weeks visiting all the museums, all the music venues and all the while working at the Dutch National Opera with some amazing folks (see list above)

    – March: Snowboarding the Swiss and the French Alps

    – April: Visiting Knoxville Tennessee for Big Ears (easily the best independent music festival in the US!!!) for the 2nd time in 2 years, and hopefully the beginning of many more visits in the future!

    – May: Spending time in sunny Los Angeles and plotting a way to spend more time there and make music

    – June: Visiting London twice in one month to work and see amazing music shows, theater shows, and art exhibits

    – July: coming back from London on July 6th only to realize that strangely there is no travel for the rest of this month! So weird and unusual!

    – August: Spending the month in Puglia, Southern Italy eating good food, kitesurfing in the Adriatic and Ionium seas, seeing tons of concerts, and playing one myself!

    – September: arriving in Mexico City and getting my very own police escort motorcade to make it in time from the airport to the theater

    – October: On tour with John Zorn in Italy, France and the Netherlands

    – November: Flying to Los Angeles with a 36-hour notice for a concert I was hired for in secrecy having been told “we need a mixing engineer who can mix music for a room full of musicians” and showing up for the Robbie Robertson tribute organized by Martin Scorsese with people like Joni Mitchell and Leonardo DiCaprio in attendance

    – December: DC-to-DF aka flying to Washington DC to work at the White House and then flying straight to Mexico City

    I’ve finished the year with travel to my motherland of Switzerland, my fatherland of Italy, and my second home of London UK!

  • The TRUTH about MUSIC Streaming Services and the ULTIMATE AUDIO QUALITY shootout test: Beats vs MOG vs Play Music (by Google) vs Rdio vs Spotify

    The TRUTH about MUSIC Streaming Services and the ULTIMATE AUDIO QUALITY shootout test: Beats vs MOG vs Play Music (by Google) vs Rdio vs Spotify

    After wondering for years which of the big music streaming services truly sounds the best, I decided to take matters into my own hands (I mean, EARS!) and do a SCIENTIFIC audio quality test. This is NOT a subjective test where I or somebody else listened and I judged what they thought might be better or worse. This is COLD HARD DATA, to be precise KiloBits Per Seconds (kbps) of data transfer and MegaBytes (Mb) of downloads. But fear not!!! I will keep the results super easy to understand and you won’t need a degree in anything to know who to pick. I can’t however promise you that you won’t be disappointed when finding out how these streaming companies have been lying to us all along about the sound quality they promise. NO MORE! With actual and factual numbers at hand I will tell you who sounds best and who delivers on their promises and you will be able to make an informed decision knowing that you are supporting the company that supports the BEST SOUNDING audio and that you are not paying full price for half the quality!

    By the way, I plan to do a lot more of these tests, so if you are interested in findings such as these or in the music industry in general, make sure you follow me on Twitter at @marcurselli or at facebook.com/marcurselli

    Without further ado, here we go…

     

    The Problem

    iPhone - appsI am still very much torn on whether to support streaming music services at all or not. Although I do of course support the idea of paying for music, the current payment distribution methods employed by these streaming services are NOT based on actual play counts and do NOT serve (or even fairly compensate) independent artists. These artists therefore absolutely cannot rely on income from these services (more on that at the end of this article) and a lot of even famous artists (like Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, David Byrne, John Zorn, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and many others) understood that and took steps to get their music off of streaming services. Should you want to take such steps you will have to rely on a company such as Muso for example.

    This said, in these times when everyone is streaming music from the cloud, if you are a music lover, it is almost impossible not to rely on one of these services for music discovery and because my no.1 concern when it comes to online music streaming is THE QUALITY I decided to set up the THE ULTIMATE AUDIO QUALITY TEST to find out which of these services actually deliver the BEST SOUNDING music. Period.

    Back when there was only Spotify and MOG to choose from, I myself chose MOG because they were the only company that even bothered to mentioned streaming quality and they always claimed that they streamed at the highest quality. I have been a MOG user for a few years now. At that same time I had approached Rdio and asked about streaming quality. They claimed they were “streaming music at CD-quality, and only do lower bit rates over 3G” but when I asked for a more technical answer all I got was “I’m sorry, but we’re not sharing this information”. I honestly do not understand why a company that promises a quality service would not provide customers with all the information about the service and the quality they are promising. Usually corporate secrecy is synonymous with wrongdoing and this lack of transparency was a huge turn off for me. So I passed on Rdio.

    Fast forward to 2014. MOG has been acquired by Dr. Dre’s Beats Music and is going to shut down on April 14th. The new Beats Music is already available and is getting good reviews because of its curatorial aspect, but I was never a fan of the Beats headphones (although I have not tested all the high-end models) and if that was their idea of good sound quality I was afraid I was going to be disappointed with their streaming quality. I went ahead and tested all the most popular music streaming services available today, which include the ever popular Spotify, the disappearing MOG, the new Beats Music, the underdog Rdio and the relatively new kid on the block Play Music (by Google). I have decided not to include iTunes Radio, Rhapsody or Pandora because they are the kind of apps that don’t allow you to listen to a specific song or artist (you can only create stations based around an artist).

    This test will ONLY and specifically be about QUALITY of audio, not about user interface, number of songs or other factors. There are plenty of reviews out there for that and I’ve added links to some of those at the bottom of this page for your convenience.

     

    The Method iPhone Settings

    In order to ensure realistic and reproducible results I tried to be as scientific as I could about this.
    Like so:

    • I streamed the same exact song on all of the services.
    • the song I chose to stream is a song of mine from an old 1995 album by my old italian electro-industrial band The M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab that was re-released on CD in 2009 and the reason I chose something of mine is because I own the master and therefore I know EXACTLY how big the file is that we are streaming (whereas if I were to choose some famous artist’s song I wouldn’t know how big the original file actually is!).
    • The song I chose had to be available on all these services and I chose the first song off the record (the song is called “Change (Cambia)”)
    • For the test over the LTE Cellular Data Network (although findings should be the same for 4G, 3G or 2G networks). The original WAV file is 66.3Mb and a 320kbps MP3 version of it is 15Mb.
    • For the WiFi test I chose a different song because I wanted to make sure that the previous song wasn’t in some way cached by the device or the app and therefore altered the results of the test. The song I chose for the WiFi test is the fourth song off the record and it is called “Mind Rape (Government’s Business)” and the original file was 52.1Mb while the 320kbps MP3 version of that is 11.8Mb.
    • Needless to say I never played these songs on these apps on the iPhone before so they were in no way cached on the device or these apps.
    • I set ALL 5 of the AT&T iPhone apps of these streaming services to the highest streaming quality settings they have available (see pictures below) and I streamed the songs over the AT&T LTE network and over my home WiFi network without ever-moving the phone around (it was just sitting on my desk) in order not to affect network reception in any way.
    • I searched for the artist in the app, then clicked on the album and then (that’s the cool part) I double clicked the home button on the iPhone to go to the Settings > Cellular > Cellular Usage page (as described here) and reset the Cellular Data Usage so that it would show zero kb.
    • At this point, for every app, I double-clicked the home button again, went to the app and clicked on the song to start playing it.
    • At the end of the song I would switch back to the Cellular Usage page and take a screenshot of the Cellular Usage page to compile my findings.
    • For the test over WiFi this method does not work because the Cellular Usage page doesn’t record data usage over WiFi (since, as the name implies, it is not cellular) so I downloaded the free iOS app Data Monitor by Nutec Apps LLC  which monitors WiFi traffic.
    • The last test I was interested in performing was the audio quality of the downloads made available for offline listening (a feature that all of these apps provide and call different things like Offline, Sync to App etc and which allows you to listen to music when you have no network coverage and no WiFi). For this test I have downloaded the full 8 track album from which the two above mentioned songs come from. The album is called “Modern Expressing Machines Of Revolutionary Youth” and by looking at the original files I can tell you that the uncompressed WAV files for the CD release were 455.4Mb, the 320kbps MP3 version was 103.3Mb and the 192kbps version was 62Mb. Some interesting findings there, you’ll see.

     

    Beats Music MOG Play Music Rdio Spotify
    Graphics - Beat Graphics - MOG Graphics - Play Graphics - rdio Graphics - Spotify
    Settings - Beat Settings - MOG Settings - Play Settings - rdio Settings - Spotify

    The Results

    Interpreting these results was not as easy as I expected and at times it is downright shocking!!! Because the numbers are so different it is safe to assume to that these apps all apply their own degree of compression to the music before streaming it. In these images and reports below, higher numbers mean higher quality so it would appear that Google’s Play Music and MOG have the best quality while Beats and Rdio have the worst.

    AT&T LTE network in Manhattan
    Beats Music 13.2Mb (slightly lower quality than 320kbps MP3 – the loser!)
    MOG 24.4Mb (much higher quality than 320kbps MP3)
    Play Music 25.1Mb (much higher quality than 320kbps MP3 – the winner!)
    Rdio 13.6Mb (slightly lower quality than 320kbps MP3)
    Spotify 17.2Mb (higher quality than 320kbps MP3)

    Beats Music MOG Play Music Rdio Spotify
    Data - Beat Data - MOG Data - Play Data - rdio Data - Spotify

     

    WiFi network in my home in Manhattan
    Beats Music 54.70Mb  (highest quality – REAL CD quality – the winner of the award “the only company who didn’t lie to us”!)
    MOG 39.18Mb
    Play Music 33.19Mb
    Rdio 18.59Mb
    Spotify 12.15Mb

    Beats Music MOG Play Music Rdio Spotify
    WiFi - Beats 1 WiFi - MOG 1 WiFi - Play 1 WiFi - rdio 1 Wifi - Spotify 1

     

    Full album Download (over WiFi) for Offline listening
    Beats Music 35.8Mb (approximately 96kbps MP3 quality)
    MOG 103Mb (equivalent to 320kbps MP3 quality – as advertised – the winner!)
    Play Music 64Mb (equivalent to 192kbps MP3 quality)
    Rdio 67.6Mb (equivalent to 192kbps MP3 quality)
    Spotify 73.3Mb (slightly higher than 192kbps MP3 quality but still lower than 320kbps – the runner-up and de facto winner since MOG will be disappearing soon)

    Beats Music MOG Play Music Rdio Spotify
    Download - Beats 1 Download - MOG 1 Download - Play 1 Download - rdio 1 Download - Spotify 1

     

    The Conclusion

    Google’s Play Music service is the winner when it comes to streaming music quality over cellular network.
    Beats Music is the clear winner when it comes to streaming music quality over WiFi. My hat goes off to them for being the ONLY ones who really deliver the promised CD-quality music, since basically they stream through an uncompressed WAV file!
    MOG is the winner when it comes to high quality downloads over WiFi but since MOG will be disappearing April 15th, the runner up and de facto winner is Spotify, in this category.

    It is important to notice that MOST OF THESE COMPANIES HAVE BEEN LYING TO OUR FACES THIS WHOLE TIME! Most of them claim to be giving you CD quality music, but guess what, the only one who does so is Beats Music and ONLY when you are on WiFi, which still leaves all of us listening to MP3 quality music, and NOT the promised CD quality music. Over Cellular Data the only ones that streams at 320kbps (which is the next best thing to true and pure CD quality) are Play Music by Google and MOG. And surprisingly NOT EVEN when you proceed to download a full album for offline listening you get true CD quality (except for MOG, for what that’s worth).

    At this point it is important to consider what use you will be making of the app. If you are going to be doing a lot of streaming (like driving around listening to new music etc) then you should choose the service that offers the highest quality streaming over cellular, but if you are the kind of person who pre-downloads all your music to listen to it offline in planes or underground subway trains you should go for the app that offers the highest quality streaming over WiFi (since you’ll most likely be doing the downloading at home/work over WiFi).

    I am happy to have supported MOG from the beginning until now however, surprisingly (or maybe not) it seems that the acquisition on the part of Beats has degraded the quality of their streaming over cellular. Therefore I will not be transferring my monthly subscription over to Beats when on April 15th MOG shuts down completely. Now that I have to choose a new service I will start with giving Google‘s Play Music a try because it seems obvious from the numbers that they are streaming music at the highest quality (if you take MOG out of the equation you will notice that Play Music has the most consistently high numbers on average).
    There are also in my opinion a few other added advantages to choosing a colossus such as Google:

    • they will never get bought by somebody else, as it just happened with MOG
    • if anyone has the economic might to acquire more content and make it more widely available, it is Google!
    • if their “Don’t Be Evil” corporate motto can give us any hope, then my hope is that they will find a way to fairly and equally compensate ALL content creators, and not just the ones who are signed by the 5 majors.

    If you don’t really care about audio quality (as sadly most don’t) or you are one of those people who say that they do but then they listen to music with the $5 white ear buds included with the iPhone or iPod by Apple, you might be more interested in the Facebook integration offered by Spotify or the intriguing curatorial aspect (and true CD quality streams over WiFi) offered by Beats Music, but Google achieved the highest average score for quality on this test and my TOP priority is QUALITY. Therefore I will give Google‘s Play Music a spin, mostly because I use music streaming services as a discovery tool. As most New Yorkers, I don’t own a car so I won’t be streaming music on the go very often. More often than not I end up downloading full albums overnight at home over WiFi, then I listen to them on the NYC underground subway trains on my way to the recording studio or on planes on my way to a gig and then I delete those records after one or two quick listenings to make room for new ones. I do this because I try to keep up with what is new out there and keep my finger on the pulse, but, when I do listen to music, I want to be able to listen to the most pure, unadulterated and uncompromising quality I can get. After all, there is a reason I spent almost $300 dollars on my in-ear phones, but that’s another story…

     

    Links to Articles with Feature Comparisons of these Services

    http://www.imore.com/on-demand-streaming-music-services-compared-spotify-rdio-beats-music-slacker-google-play-music

    http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/17/top-5-streaming-music-services-spotify-mog-rdio

     http://gizmodo.com/5750415/the-best-streaming-music-service

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/amadoudiallo/2013/09/24/itunes-streaming-radio-versus-pandora-and-spotify

     http://www.cultofmac.com/265655/winner-best-music-demand-streaming-service 

     

    Links to Articles about Why the Streaming Music Service model is Broken

    http://source.nationwidedisc.com/spotify-pandora-and-streaming-music-should-you-post-your-music

    http://business.time.com/2013/12/03/heres-how-much-money-top-musicians-are-making-on-spotify

     http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/19/zoe-keating-spotify-streaming-royalties

    http://readwrite.com/2013/12/06/streaming-music-competition-pandora-rdio-spotify

    http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/02/21/favoritepays

    http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/12/13/quicksummarystreaming

  • 50% OFF all MIXES to help artists during Covid

    For a limited time only, I’ll be offering my mixing services at 50% of my standard rate in order to help ALL artists and musicians who have been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.

    In order to take advantage of this offer all you have to do is send me an email through this form and answer a few questions below.

    Filling out this form does not in any way force you to use my services or take advantage of this offer, you can decide at any time whether you want to go ahead with this mixing offer or not. I am simply trying to gather the information that I need to give you a quote.

    [contact-form-7 id=”1184″ title=”50% off mixing for covid19 artists”]

  • new Marc Urselli interview in The Holy Filament webzine from Chile

    The super nice and super cool guys from the Chilean webzine The Holy Filament have interviewed me on the occasion of the John Zorn Masada Marathon in Bogota, Colombia, an epic 4 hour long concert event where I mixed 12 of John Zorn’s best bands playing his music, from classical, to jazz, to experimental avantgarde to metal. People from all over South America (Peru, Chile, San Salvador etc) flew in to Colombia to see John Zorn’s first ever Masada Marathon in South America. The whole staff of The Holy Filament flew in as well!

    Here is the interview: http://www.theholyfilament.cl/destacados/entrevista-a-marc-urselli/

    And since the interview is in Spanish, here is the English version of it:

    • How did your love and career in sound engineering begin? Where did that happen?

    I started in Italy where I grew up. I had a band at the time and I wanted to record the rehearsals so I started to buy some recording equipment. First a 4 track cassette recorder, then a mixer, then some microphones etc etc. I started making demo tapes. Eventually a friend of mine who had a studio decided to upgrade his studio console and that is when the light when off in my head and I decided to become a sound engineer. I bought his used console and opened a recording studio in Italy, where I lived, and I was recording lots of punk/hard core bands. Then after a few years of doing that I decided I wanted to extend my horizons and experience and that is when I moved to NYC.

    • What was your vocational training in the art of capturing sounds? Formally and informally.

    I didn’t really have any formal training. I was considering going to an audio school before moving to NYC but then I decided to do some internships and learn by watching other people. I practiced a lot in my spare time and got better and better at it. It took a lot of experimenting and a lot of work but I kept getting better at it and was really loving it.

    • How would you describe the art of mix and capturing sound?

    They are different arts, but both intrinsically connected as they closely depend on each other. Both are a mixture of science and art. Experience and knowledge are key parts but experimentation is also very important. To me both are incredibly interesting and I take great enjoyment out of both. Mixing is especially creative for me so I love mixing records because in a mix everything is just as important as everything else and you have to make sure everything is heard in the mix and that the mix carries you. It’s an art form that I have been practicing to get better at every day.

    • Tell me about Eastside Studio. How did you begin in the studio? I presume that your professional career there was a long time investment.

    Yes, very long. I started there as an intern under the owner and founder Lou Holtzman who gave me a chance. I was supposed to only stay for 3 months but kept staying longer and longer. I was cleaning toilets, vacuuming the floors and making coffee… That’s before I even got to wrap up cables! It took a long time until I could prove my worth in the control room. It took over two years of commitment to get to where I was allowed to do a session, I went from being a runner/cleaner/intern to an assistant. Then I became an engineer and now I am the chief engineer and manager. I am very grateful for the chance I got to make coffee and cleaning toilets!

    • Were there other jobs before you became a sound engineer? Tell me about your beginnings.

    I never really did much else actually. I had and still have an interest in web design and before engineering completely took over my life I was trying my hand at making a living with web design. It’s a skill that came in handy and that I still use and enjoy today. I designed my own website (www.marcurselli.com), the one for the studio (www.eastsidesound.com), the one for my record label (www.stridulationrecords.com) and other websites like my music magazine Chain D.L.K. (www.chaindlk.com).

    • How do you do it with the equipment to mix and record an album? I imagine that depends on what the musicians want. Do you have to purchase or upgrade equipment/material for that?

    I have some equipment my own but luckily I am not a studio owner anymore and so I am not responsible for buying equipment. EastSide Sound is one of the best studios in the world and they have an amazing collection of vintage analog and modern digital equipment so I get to use a mixture of both to make records and I choose the different pieces of equipment according to the sound I want to achieve. I am very fortunate to be able to work in such an amazing studio!

    • In terms of the “needs” and requirements of the different musicians, how do you adapt to the requirements of the musicians, especially to capture the essence of an album as a rough diamond?

    Every musician is different so I try to cater to the needs of all the musicians on a session and make sure they are comfortable and get what they want and what they need and that they are relaxed so that they can focus uniquely on the music and give their best performance. The more relaxed, happy and focused they are the better will be the performance and so it is in everyone’s best interest that the musicians are happy in the studio!

    • This question will be a little long… Lately you’ve been mixing albums of John Zorn, Dave Lombardo, recently mixed up a live album of Steven O’Malley and so on… The thing is, I imagine that you have a huge responsibility to not “screw up” the music that you tape. How do you deal professionally with the responsibility of that?

    I don’t think about the responsibility so much, I just think about how to do it best without making mistakes. Of course it’s a great responsibility to track a take that will never be played the same way again and it is my job to make a mix sound as good as it can be, but the people I work with trust me with their sound and I have never let anyone down! I am a reliable person and a consumate professional. I cross the t’s and dot the i’s, I double check everything and I am very organized. I never lost a file for example, but this means that I have to be methodical about file organization, naming, dating and backing up. For example I back up every single thing I do to two hard drives while I am working, so even if one hard drive dies I always have a mirror backup copy of everything I am doing. And I save multiple times every minute. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I am half swiss, so I am very organized ;-)

    • So far, including your awards and nominations, what has been your favorite /job on a record?

    Too many to remember! Just this week I did one record with John Zorn, one with Jack DeJohnette, Esperanza Spalding and Leo Genovese, one with Don Friedman and one with Ben Allison. That is 4 records this week alone! I am very busy and I never stop working. I love working with John Zorn and I have great memories of working with Lou Reed, Les Paul, Mike Patton and many many others.

    • Now you will be in Colombia with the Zorn Marathon. There are many aspects to ask about in your job, for example how do you make a theater “sounds good”. How do you adapt the acoustic when you enter in a theater and tailor the sound live?

    Live sound is a whole other animal and I love it dividing my time between studio and concerts. Every venue you go to is different and has different acoustics and you have to tune the PA to make sure it reacts as you’d expect it to when you mix. Obviously there is only so much you can do with a good PA or with certain venues which might be too reflective or too boomy. When I walk into a new venue the first thing I do is play some music I know well (music I recorded usually) over the PA to hear what it sounds like in different places of the theater. Then I EQ the PA so that it sounds the way I know that music should sound like. Once I have done that I am more comfortable mixing because I know how my actions will translate.

    • Can it become stressful to be in charge of the sound in theaters or venues with bad acoustics?

    Absolutely! It is not only stressful but it’s also depressing from my point of view. I want every concert to sound perfect and if I am working in a room with bad acoustics or a terrible PA there is only so much I can do to make that happen.

    • What has been your biggest challenge in terms of being in charge of sound live?

    Well the challenge is always making it sound good everywhere you go with limited amount of time and sometimes limited resources. I’ve done sound in 100 people clubs and at festivals with 40’000 people in the audience. I’ve mixed everything from classical music to loud rock shows. I toured with Lou Reed for 7 years and he was one of the most demanding people I’ve worked for, but it was great working for him! I’ve toured with the Black Crowes and the Beach Boys and Mike Patton… Some of the most challenging shows where those where you have a loud band with a string orchestra. The Mike Patton Mondo Cane project has 25 players on stage, 12 of which are strings, and the band can get loud, but those shows are amazing. I did a show where the Beach Boys played together with a Symphony Orchestra: you have a rock band with a loud drummer and a quiet singer standing in front of the PA and on orchestra behind all of that, now that’s a challenge! All of those are challenges and you do what you can do make it all work out!

    • I know, at least I have the feeling that you’re a very enthusiastic person and you like challenges. JOHN ZORN, especially in a Marathon or in the tour for his 60… How is the challenge of making a Zorn show sound good?

    Well every John Zorn show is certainly a huge challenge. I don’t mind challenges as long as I am put in the right conditions to work. With Zorn I am alone doing everything and Zorn likes to do these Marathon shows with 10 of his bands in a row, playing 15-20 minutes each. The stage has to change over quickly between these bands and you can go from a metal trio to a string quartet to a jazz ensemble to an a cappella vocal group to an experimental noise project, all within the same night, on the same stage. There are almost 100 channels of audio and they all have to work. Beyond that the challenge is not only to make it all sound good but also to make it flow effortlessly and quickly.

    • And how has it been in the studio mixing for Zorn in different formats and projects?

    That’s always great, but even there, especially with Zorn, you have to move super fast to keep up with his expectations. I have recorded and mixed more than 50 albums by John Zorn and have been working with him for years. He’s an unstoppable force of nature, he knows exactly what he wants and he’s good at getting it out of people. I always look forward to the sessions with Zorn because he writes such great unique music and he always picks the best musicians in the world and it is a true pleasure and honor to be a witness of how the music is created in the studio by Zorn and those cats.

    • In recent years you’ve been to South America with projects of Mike Patton and John Zorn, in Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil… How was your experience in this continent? Now in Colombia, what do you expect from this new experience with the Marathon?

    One never knows what to expect in South America, that’s why I come a day before Zorn to make sure it all is right and to have time to setup everything for the day of the show! Unfortunately the South Americans are not the most organized people you will meet when it comes to concert production and you never quite know what to expect when you get there, but the people are great and the places are great. I’ve been to Colombia 3 times and I love coming to South America. As long as I don’t get robbed (which has happened!) and I have a safe stay I always enjoy coming back.

    • I have many more questions in mind because ultimately you get to hear all kinds of new music and definitely YOU HAVE all the new music… when you mix, and you have an album or a song done, in your point of view of a fan, not only as an engineer, how does it feel to have and listen to a new golden record in your hands before anyone else can? (Can you tell me an experience that excited you?)

    You are right, I get to hear a lot of amazing music before anyone else does. It’s a blessing and a privilege and it’s an honor for me to be in this position. However, people will get to hear it eventually so I don’t really pride myself or get excited about the fact that I can hear it a few months before anyone else. What is much more exciting is being there when it is created in front of your eyes and seeing and being part of this process of creation. That is the true privilege that I enjoy as a fan of music in general. What also happens is that some time some amazing great music is made in the studio and then for whatever reason it does not get released… That is when it really becomes special to have been part of something because not only you hear it first but you might be the only one to hear it… I just did a record with Miles Davis’ drummer Jack DeJohnette playing the piano. The record is going to be on vinyl only (on Newvelle records) and Jack recorded more songs than can fit on one vinyl so nobody will get to hear all the other songs he recorded, at least not for a long time. The same has happened many other times. The Les Paul tribute album I did in 2005 (which won 2 Grammy Awards) had a lot of cuts that did not make it to the final album track list so I have some unreleased gems in my files that nobody else has heard! That’s a true special privilege.

    • Finally. a brief brief question about Stridulation Records. Why the decision to start a label? How are you doing with that? What comes in the future of Stridulation? Is it difficult to enter the labels market? That’s a major challenge, isn’t it?

    Actually nowadays everyone can start a label because the tools are out there for everyone. The hardest thing is getting people to buy the records. I’ve always wanted to start a record label honestly. It stems from my desire to support the music that I love. I would love to release 50 records a year like Zorn does on his label Tzadik but unfortunately I am too busy and the economic reality is a big factor of course. Stridulation records (www.stridulationrecords.com) is an attempt to make a small contribution to the world of music that I want to support. The first two releases were my experimental noise project Craesher and my label mate’s electronic-black-metal band Aborym. However I would like to release other music as well, when I find some that me and my label mates all like and believe in. In the future we might possibly release a very interesting release by an established musician I have worked with who has a very cool side project, but I won’t say anything more until it is confirmed.

    • Another final question… New projects and records for this 2015/2016?

    I have a ton of ideas and projects but very little time for my own music. I am working on a doom metal record with members of Japanese taiko super group Kodo and members of Khanate and Blind Idiot God and I have ideas for a whole other doom metal solo record and an electronic/dark record and other things. All of my own personal projects always get put on the backseat because I spend my time making records for other people. This year, besides doing many records with John Zorn, I started working with this new vinyl only record label called Newvelle records who is putting out some really cool jazz records. I’ve been mixing a bunch of jazz and blues records as well and some records for the Japanese market and even the new Curupira record, this great Colombian world music band that came to New York to record with me. On top of that I am constantly mixing other records by artists from all over the world so check out my website to see what other releases that I am involved with are coming out: www.marcurselli.com

    Thanks for all your patience and care Marc!

    Thank you for the interview! Your magazine rocks!

  • New Marc Urselli interview on italian rock magazine “Tutto Rock” by journalist Maurizio Donini

    I just did an interview for the italian rock magazine “Tutto Rock”. The questions were by journalist Maurizio Donini. The interview is in italian but if any of you would like to read it or attempt a definitely-incorrect google translation of it, here is the link:

    www.tuttorock.net/interviste/marc-urselli-intervista-ad-uno-dei-maggiori-sound-engineer-nel-mondo-3-grammy-awards

  • Sym Proceed SM-MP4 is my latest piece of studio equipment

    SymProceedSPMP4I want to briefly speak about the latest piece of studio equipment I’ve acquired.

    It is a brand new pre-amp built without compromise in Japan and meant to be an ultra-transparent high fidelity pre-amp for when instead of a colored sound with extra sonic characteristics (something you often might want) you just want to hear EXACTLY what is being picked up by your microphones (which is something you also often want!).
    I’m endorsing this product because it delivers sound impeccably, it offers loads of gain (great for ribbon mics for example!) and it is built like a tank (and weighs as much as a tank too – which for a pre-amp is always a good indication of high quality construction and no compromise in choice of components on the part of the manufacturer!).

    You can check out the pre-amp on the Sym Proceed website or you can come to EastSide Sound and do some recording with me, I’ll be happy to show you the pre-amp and use it on your session!
    Here’s a picture of it before I permanently rack-mounted it:

    DSC01812

     

  • DJ Cassidy’s “Calling All Hearts” feat. Nile Rodgers & Earth, Wind & Fire

    Had the pleasure to work with DJ Cassidy on his new R&B/dance/disco video featuring Nile Rogers, Earth Wind & Fire and other great players and vocals by Robin Thicke and Jesse J…
    The video was edited by Kevin Custer and was released by Columbia Records via Rolling Stones magazine’s website.

    Click to watch video

     

  • My SXSW 2013 recap report appeared in the June issue of Recording Magazine

    SXSW is always fun and this year I co-wrote the SXSW report with my friend Greg Arens.

    To read it please click here

    Enjoy

  • John Zorn Marathon at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis 4/6/13

    John Zorn is unquestionably the most interesting and advanced composer of our times. Although he looks 45ish this year he actually turns 60 and to celebrate he is doing a number of concerts all around the world, in different countries every month, all year long.

    I am lucky enough to be the one doing sound for these complicated multi-band shows (think 9 bands in 3-4 hours with 5 min stage changes). As challenging as these marathons are to mix and advance, they are absolutely AMAZING to watch and if it is the one thing you travel for this year I would highly recommend catching one of them in Europe this summer.

    The first one of the series of 2013 Zorn at 60 marathons took place last week at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN.

    I don’t usually repost other people’s reviews, but this enthusiastic concert goer has some good videos and since I was too busy doing sound to be documenting the show I thought I’d post his reviews with videos so you can see what you missed:

    Concert Review: John Zorn Marathon at the Walker Art Center 4/6/13 – Part 1: Book of Heads, Hockey, Cobra, Composer Q&A – Concert Manic!

    Concert Review: John Zorn Marathon at the Walker Art Center (4/6/2013) – Part 2: Masada – Concert Manic!

    Concert Review: John Zorn Marathon at the Walker Art Center (4/6/2013) – Part 3: The Concealed, Nova Express, Aleph Trio and The Hermetic Organ – Concert Manic!