- Artist: Fabric: Mark Farina
- Title: Fabric 40
- Label: Fabric
- Release Date: Jun 10 08
click to download CD cover- Track Listing:
- 01 Giom – Together
- 02 Chuck Love – Yellow Truth [Atnarko Mix]
- 03 JT Donaldson & Uneaq – Why Not Rock ?
- 04 Ricardo Rae – Lead The Way
- 05 John Larner & Slater Hogan – Gettin’ Ready
- 06 Inland Knights – Where Ya At ?
- 07 Homero Espinosa Got This Feeling (LNS Disco Dub)
- 08 Alexander East – Believe En Me
- 09 Frank Solano – The Blues Line [Tommy Largo Remix]
- 10 Kris G – Feel My Love [Bobby Valentine Remix]
- 11 Non Believers – Stasera
- 12 Johnny Fiasco – Last Word
- 13 Mood II Swing – Closer [Oliver Desmet & Fred Everything Mix]
- 14 James Curd – Pick Up What I’m Putting Down
- 15 Rylan White Ft. Olly Brunton– There Goes The Neighbourhood
- 16 Lawnchair Generals – Broke Acid
- 17 Jeremy Joshua – Make Dat Shit [Derrick Carter Mix]
- 18 DJ Sneak – Mumbler
- 19 Prztz – Brutality
- 20 Mark Farina – Das Shibuya [Cheeba Mix]
- 21 King Kooba – Hoose Musik
Music has ruled Mark Farina’s every step, since his vibrant youth: days spent marching routines with a trumpet in his Chicago high school’s band blurred into wild nights stomping around hardcore and punk shows. Eventually persuading his parents to allow him to ditch the brass bugle and bring a drum set into the house, Mark held the beat down for a New Wave alternative cover band (reworking The The, The Smiths, The Cure, Front 242, Ministry and the like) that tore through countless garages, gymnasiums, churches and Battle of the Bands. As Mark’s musical tastes took a turn for the electronic, he dove head-first into the luscious world of turntables and nightclubs, a shift reflected by his band becoming the high school’s first to incorporate a drum machine in its setup. Zealously weaving in and out of late-night teen clubs in-between his electronic band’s shows, Mark celebrated his first solo DJ gig at the Chicagoan underage mecca, Medusa’s, at the age of 16.
With Chicago being such a close-knit scene, Mark eventually bumped shoulders with many of the scene innovators at Gramaphone, “a huge record store in Chicago, everybody worked there at some point - Derrick Carter, Ralphie Rosario, J Dub, DJ Heather – we’re all a big family.” It was only a matter of time before his residency at Medusa’s spread over to one of Chicago’s most seminal nightclubs, Smartbar. With his DJing career rapidly unfolding layers, Mark joined minds and rooms with emerging DJs Derrick Carter and Chris Nazuka, living in a loft space they fondly called “Rednail”. Named off the back of Carter’s Rednail Kidz productions, the loft took on a life of its own and became home for raucous parties and their first productions, and inspired their phone number (R-E-D-N-A-I-L). Producing under the moniker Symbols & Instruments, the synergistic trio’s most important (for the Chicago scene, and electronic music in general) production is, to this day, credited as the “first ambient house” tune: the KMS classic ‘Mood.’
Reaping the rapt success of Chicagoan productions like ‘Mood,’ DJs from different corners of the country began flying in to the Midwest to see what was bubbling. As a result, the snow-globe mentality of the Chicago house scene finally opened up, allowing the scene to see outside of itself – and Mark, meanwhile, was able to see all the way over to the left coast.
“We hadn’t really left the city, and no one outside of Chicago had really offered us any gigs. At that time, Chicago and San Francisco were like two different worlds. In Chicago, one DJ would play the whole night, but in San Francisco the DJs would play a set for only a couple hours. The San Francisco parties actually had promoters; in Chicago, it was all do-it-yourself - the DJs were the promoters. Although Chicago was a drinking town and people would stay out til 3 or 4am, you’d never have people staying out til sunrise, and there were never any day parties. But in San Francisco, the whole party scene was pretty crazy. The house sound of Chicago was the only sound we knew, and when we came out to San Francisco, there was a whole different world of electronic music that didn’t really make it to Chicago. Likewise, as there wasn’t much of a Chicago house scene on the west coast, we were pretty unique there. So I started to come out for a week here, a week there, and eventually one of the promoters I played for offered me a room for really cheap in San Francisco. For two or three years, I had the Rednail loft in Chicago and a room in San Francisco, and I was back and forth between the two. It was a very slow transition.” – Mark Farina
While finding the balance between the two cities, Mark also found a balance between the main room sound he was known for, and the back room sound he adored.
“I started playing some more acid jazz music, around the time of the acid jazzy boom in the early 90’s with a lot of the Talking Loud stuff. I was also into a lot of East coast hip hop, so I wanted to start a Mushroom Jazz night, which was more downtempo-based, just to try something different than house. After we’d been doing that night for a bit, Om Records approached me around ’92, ’93 about doing a mix CD that represented the night. Om are old friends of mine now, it’s worked out really well over the years. I’ve been with them for over 10 years.” – Mark Farina
Fusing the laid-back vibes of San Francisco and the jackin’ sounds of Chicago, bringing the Midwest and West coast to some kind of smooth, sunny middle ground, Mark Farina takes fabric 40 by the helm and steers it down an astonishing, picturesque route. Mixed lovingly by hand, this buoyant, essential summer soundtrack swells and melds with the head-nodding sounds of Derrick Carter, JT Donaldson & Uneaq, DJ Sneak and King Kooba.
“When making the mix, I played a sort of fictitious set at fabric on a night that doesn’t exist. Musically, I tried to capture the techy, jackin’ Chicago/SF side of the house spectrum - dubby, chunky tracks. I tried to pick tunes from all over the world. I picked a good variation of underground goodies, a lot of which are unreleased or hopefully not on any other compilations. Tracks that have a good “shelf life” but that aren’t proven hits; hidden gems that might go over looked in this fast paced music era.” – Mark Farina