San Francisco house legend Mark Farina recently released House of Om, an uptempo mix of quality house music. Known for his downtempo acid jazz sets (the Mushroom Jazz sound) as well as his housey vibes, Mark travels the world as a "modern day traveling minstrel," spreading his unique sounds.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: I've really enjoyed this new House of Om CD. How do you come up with the lineup for a project like this?
Mark Farina: It takes a couple of months' preparation to do licensing and get the CD out, so I try get promos from people – new
music that isn't out yet or super played-out. I try to mix stuff from all over the place. I am lucky because I know a lot of producers which helps with finding great tracks.
RS: How is this CD different than, say, a Mushroom Jazz CD?
Mark Farina: It's quite different because Mushroom Jazz CDs have a more downtempo acid jazz vibe,. House of Om is more of a straight house vibe with tracks in the 125 beat per minute range. The Mushroom Jazz tracks are more 100 to 105 bpm. Mixwise, the style is different as I might scratch and stuff like that on the downtempo tracks that I wouldn't do with the house tracks.
RS: On House of Om, what track were you most excited about being able to get for the CD?
Mark Farina: Gee, let's see, there's quite a few good ones. "Right Now" by the Freaks and Robert Owens is a great now. The Freaks have been great for year and Robert Owen is one of my vocal favorites since the Fingers days when I was starting to play house. There's lots of good new younger guys I've got on there, like Gavin Boyce who is a young guy from Ireland. Then there's another guy, Leon Loider out of Montreal, and I really like his stuff. There's a lot of good tracks on there.
RS: How do you find the new up-and-coming producers and DJs out there?
Mark Farina: Since everything is digital now, I find search is easier than a few years ago when we were getting vinyl promos. I am traveling to clubs and people give me CDs all the time. I find that it's all about picking the right tunes. Production is more accessible. There's artists that each person knows when you get a new track from that artist, you're excited and you know it's going to be good. If it's a new Derrick Carter or Cajmere track you know it will be good, but you could also get a Joe Shmoe track from Iowa or Brazil and it's just as good as that track. That's what I'm finding- that you can just never know where you might get a good tune from.
RS: I notice there's a track on here from you "Cosmic Melody." Is that a new production?
Mark Farina: Yes, it's something new I put together for the CD. I'm still not sure if it's going to come out on the the EP I'm putting out, because apparently they've licensed the sample that I used on there. The sample is from Adonis "We're Rocking Down the House" which is on Trax records. Its one of those weird loopholes of licensing things. The other stuff new I've worked on will be on a new EP coming out Back To The House which goes along with the House of Om CD. There are many new bits on there as well. Some producers use more of their tracks on mixed CDs, but I think one is enough representation. I like to pass the pie around and use as many people as I can.
RS: If I go out and see you spin live in some city, would I hear you play what's on this House of Om CD or what you play on the Mushroom Jazz CDs. How do you play out live these days?
Mark Farina: Well it varies. If it's a house set it might sound similar, but I don't ever play anything the same way or anything, but it's a similar style. I like to mix things up and even sometimes I do both in the set and with the Mushroom Jazz style and move into housier stuff after an hour. It just depends, but if it's a pure house night, I might not vary the tempo too much but a lot of people these days know both styles and they ask beforehand. I'm playing in New Orleans and they specifically asked beforehand that they wanted an hour of Mushroom Jazz and then house in a three hour set.
So sometimes people prefer it that way but live it's pretty spontaneous, I might know the first record I'm going to play and have some new good ones I'm going to play at some point but I don't really have a set plan. I always alter geographically from city to city and there's always a different party atmosphere going on so you kind of come to it accordingly.
