#joelmather

5 MINS WITH..    CALLUM MARSHALL

ESC was recently born out of Left Right Recordings - tell me about it! 

Hi mate! Well, for about the last year I’ve been working with a guitarist (Joel Mather), and our approach has been to combine our influences to make electronic music with an organic element. So ESC came about as an output for the songs we’ve been putting together. 

Where and how was your production style born? 

It all started with drum n bass really. I moved to London for two years back in 2011 and saw a lot of great music on some nice systems, which helped me really appreciate how diverse the genre is. This definitely helped in getting me in to labels like Good Looking Records, Metalheadz and Exit where I found the raves to be unlike anything I had experienced in Melbourne. Particularly in the way the DJs were mixing. You’d get some really cool blends where there’d be heavy beats and bass over some nice Rhodes loops or something just really lush. I found that combination of “ruff with the smooth” really made a certain vibe at a night and would draw some of the wildest reactions from people who obviously loved the music. This is something I would say is pretty much central to my intentions when I make music, where you’ll have some choppy breaks and subby bass with a mellow pad above it to try and contrast moods. 

As expected, you've twisted 'Ivory' into a field of lushness - how did you get it there? 

 I used a few of the instruments and chains I’ve developed with Joel in other ESC projects so that helped with getting into the arrangement pretty quickly. I have a tendency to transition in to minor and then Joel came up with a transition back to major to bridge the gap. So I think having those shifts throughout provides more of a resolution for when the vocal re-emerges at the end. I also used the quieter parts of the vocal but kept them quite loud in the mix, which helped make everything seem a bit more spacious. 

What's next for ESC?