Markomen (known by most as Marko) hails from Medway in north Kent, an absolute hotbed of contemporary creativity. Marko has been making beats on-and-off for the best part of ten years, but over the last nine months or so he has begun to realise that he would like to start doing something serious with his skills.

In the early days, using virtually anything he could find that made sound (repping the Amiga 500 & Protracker!), Marko was making techno, futuristic jungle, and “kind of weird hip-hop beats”. He then spent a few years “being employed and playing grown-ups”, before returning to his music on a drum & bass tip.

“There’d been a massive revolution in music-technology in that time,” Marko explains. “Instead of Fasttracker, there was Fruityloops. Instead of Cakewalk Pro Audio, there was Cubase VST. Computers had gotten pretty much fast enough to do everything in real-time. The only trouble was I’d just gone back to education – college and uni, so I didn’t really have the time to crack on with it all. I’ve basically spent the last four years getting schooled full-time, and learning to make music all over again part-time.”

He also spent a significant part of these years at parties and raves, enjoying, as he puts it, “both the bassline in the basements, and the fleuro in the fields”. This led to the concept of ‘psychederelict’ music, which he loosely defines as ‘urban bass on a tripped-out tip’. “Psychederelict started out as a drum and bass project, but over time it morphed into this kind of downtempo heavy-bass that I was calling ‘nu-skool dub’.” 

A long-time reggae music fiend, Marko was blown away by the dubstep explosion. “The revolution was a revelation,” he grins. “It’s like somehow the universe had read my mind and given me the genre of music I’d been waiting for! There are so many producers out there that I’d never even heard of a year ago who are making music that I would define as psychederelict. To me, psychederelict is the soundtrack for a culture that seeks spiritual liberation in a world that is decaying around them. It is mournful and melancholy, yet at the same time outrageously uplifting. It should make you want to jump around and free yourself from the choking chains of this present society.  There’s a political bent in there too. It’s all about the bassline, man. Like the horns of Jericho for the twenty-first century: shaking down the walls of Babylon!”

After investing significantly in his studio set-up, Marko has now devoted himself entirely to making music. He draws from a wealth of eclectic studio experimentation (which includes radio drama), and hopes that his unique brand of future-sub-dub will go down well with the people. Many psychederelict projects are lined up for Virus B-23, in which Markomen will continue to explore the deeper side of drop-bass.

Full respect goes out to Dr I Honey, Rod Azlan, Lupen Crook, Asimilon, and the Nagual Sound Experiment/Slew. -Peace-
 

Kitlist - Korg Z1; Novation Nova; Yamaha DX21; Korg Electribe ER1 mkII; Control Synthesis DB9 "analogue thingy"; Roland TR-606; SoundCraft Delta 32 desk; rack of "stuff" (mostly dynamics and EQ, but I've got some wicked old skool analogue echo chambers); Behringer multiFX; Alesis BitRMan; Cubase SX & plug ins; bunch of Casio keyboards (just picked up an SK-1!) and a "box of toys".

Virus B-23 Discography 

Psychederelict Dubs Vol 1 (VB23MP031) 

Obeah Man (appears on the Phlegmatic Selections compilation) (VB23MP032D)

 
Buy Markomen downloads on Virus B-23 from these stores

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