Octex (Jernej Marušič) - ZVO.ČI.TI (So.und.ing) 2010
The project ZVO.ČI.TI. (so.und.ing) is a series of thematically rounded radio and podcast audio broadcasts about Slovenian composers and authors of electro-acoustic sound experiments.
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Octex, Jernej Marušič, (text by: Luka Zagoričnik) Hidden behind the
name Octex is the Ljubljana-based artist Jernej Marušič, who
started appearing under this name, a shorter version of Organic
Crackle and Tone EXperiments, in the late nineties of the previous
century – as a follower of contemporary currents in electronic
music and a lover of analogue sound synthesisers. His first
released composition ‘Nigljana’ was included in a varied
compilation of Slovene electronic music Elektrotehnika Slavenika
from the year 2000, which was issued with wide acclaim as a
supplement to the British music monthly The Wire. His LP debut
‘Idea Lashna’, by and large one of the most groundbreaking and
creative achievements in the Slovene electronic scene, was released
in 2002 under Tehnika Records label, having wide reverberations
also abroad. The critics recognised it as a top-notch product
following the stripped-down aesthetic characteristic of musicians
signed under the German label Basic Channel, while the album
offered a finely tailored mix of techno, ambient music, and dub as
an echo and a reaction to contemporary, nervous sound landscape of
urban circles. The album earned Marušič the then influential
Slovene music award ‘Bumerang’, awarded by Studio City programme of
the Slovene National Television, while in France it was voted one
of the ten finalists for the electronic music award presented by
Radio France International. That said, Marušič’s music making does
not stick to proven recipes and a solidified sound aesthetic. In an
on-going, restless search for a new sound, Octex absorbs various
trends that schizophrenically spring from the field of electronic
musics, incorporating them again and again in its own music in a
distinctly unique and recognisable manner. Already with his next
album ‘Variations’, released by RX:TX in 2005, Marušič found
himself in an altogether new world, which drew on a tense and
intense techno connection between Berlin and Detroit, traversed by
dub, soft sound textures, and complex, seemingly unstructured
rhythms, with which he stepped out of the prescribed matrix 4/4 and
which have today become a trademark for Marušič’s work. Around that
time, Marušič also started to regularly appear live; he did remixes
for well known artists, like Laibach and Ultra-Red, while
reverberations of his work also took him across our borders. He
performed, for example, in a London-based series Sprawl, in Club
Transmediale in Berlin, in Dispatch in Belgrade, and at Exit
Festival in Novi Sad. With the album in question, Octex also signed
to the home RX:TX label, in the frame of which he performed
alongside artists under labels such as Raster-Noton, contributed
tracks to two international compilations ‘Progress’ and ‘Progress
EX 0.4’, both released by the mentioned label, and was featured on
a highly appreciated Slovene compilation ‘Trans Slovenia Express
Vol.2’, dedicated to the cult band Kraftwerk and released by the
British Mute Records. Earlier this year, RX:TX released Octex’s
long-awaited new album titled ‘Every Sound Tells a Story’, which is
this time lined more explicitly with an analogue sound of modular
sound synthesisers, sifted through digital technology. Individual
tracks from the album were inspired by fieldwork recordings, which
are in a processed form blended into each track. Dino Lalić, a
music critic for Radio Student, wrote the following about the
album. ‘Its sound readily admits techno, dub, and ambient
influences, with none of them standing out in particular. The fact
that these influences remain merged offers a myriad of
interpretations. Nobody is right and whoever says he is – is
inevitably wrong’. These words fitly capture the essence of the
restless, yet sound-wise well-tailored creativity of Jernej
Marušič, which he lately also incorporates into improvisation, both
in his solo performances and in his work in the trio Ago Tela,
which includes, besides Marušič, also DJ Dojajo and Mario Marolt,
while at the same t
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