Interview with marco Guardia (Reverb) 2005 Interview from 2005 with Marco Guardia (Reverb) who stopped (everyone regrets) in 2003. The technical brain behind Flutlicht and S.H.O.K.K.'s productions until 2003 took some time to answer many hot questions surrounding his departure from the trance scene and the things around that. Want to know everything about Reverb's choices or what he's doing right now? Find it all in here. A lot of people have always wanted to know what exactly caused one of the most groundbreaking and ahead-in-time producers to stop doing what he did so well. Together with Natron and Giotto, he formed the Flutlicht and S.H.O.K.K. duo's respectively. Also doing tracks under various guises like Mark Guard, Servant Of Light and Unmark, as well as productions for DJ Energy, DJ Tatana and Max B. Grant, he always showed that he was capable to produce some of the most energetic tunes ever created. Two years after his final decision, we thought now would be a good time to catch up with him to find out what's going on with him at the moment. Here we go! i:Vibes: It’s been two years since your decision to stop producing trance like you used to. The message on your website says you kind of ‘lost interest’ back then. How come? It can’t have been because of bad reactions on your records, because it seemed like everyone just totally adored them! A: I understand that to some people this statement must have seemed a bit vague. Let me explain it this way: When I started making trance I had also just started to discover all the possibilities of electronic music, I was really still experimenting, learning and trying things out and changing (which is what you should always do and what I’m still doing now of course). Then I focused on trance. It was great. I was constantly learning, developing and applying things. But very soon I discovered that I liked a broad spectrum of electronic music. I also liked the slightly weirder stuff – the releases on Warp Records for example. If you listen closely you can hear my love for glitches, granulizing, slicing and chopping in the later Flutlicht and SHOKK records. Anyway, while the reality of the releases could probably make you think that I was focusing more and more on trance, I was personally developing into a completely different direction. This discrepancy was gradually becoming a real problem. I was of course trying to incorporate my ideas into the trance records we made, which was nice, but not satisfying enough. Privately I was exploring all these ideas, working on totally different tracks. In the end there was such a huge gap between what I was doing and what I wanted to do. That was when I decided to stop. i:Vibes: What exactly are you doing at the moment? Graphic / visual stuff (perhaps you have some examples of your work?) as stated on your website, or are you doing other things as well now? A: I’m not sure how much I should talk about about my main interest at the moment. Let’s say it’s a project that has something to do with movies. This is what I’m focusing on now and what I’m really passionate about. I can put all my creative energy into it. I’ve been planning and working on this for quite some time now. i:Vibes: Do you still listen to trance (or any other form of electronic music) nowadays? If so, do you like the way EDM is building itself out more and more, with new styles like techtrance and the trance / progressive hybrid emerging? A: I don’t listen to trance anymore. Actually I’ve never listened to trance that much but I still kinda like it. I’ll try to name a couple of my favorite artists these days: Psapp, Radiohead, Zero7, Jon Brion, Björk, Aimee Mann, Amon Tobin, Aphex Twin, Sigur Rós, Mychael Danna, Tom Tyler, Goldfrapp, Ulrich Schnauss and many many more. I could of course also name all the composers of classical music like Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Händel or Fauré, but this would take too much time. I’m sorry, I can’t really comment on the development of trance / techtrance because I’m not following it. i:Vibes: Have you done anything musical in the time between July ’03 and now, apart from the chill-out track that was posted on your site in December ’03? Have you gone further in doing more loungy tracks, or was ‘What’s The Secret, Max?’ just a one-timer? A: Why yes, I’ve done A LOT of musical stuff! There are many finished and unfinished tracks on my HD, many! Now there are some tracks that definitely qualify as “loungy”. But generally I’m working without ever thinking about genres anymore and that’s really nice. Unfortunately I also spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital and in other places trying to cope with a disease that was discovered last year. It’s a nasty thing. It has often stopped me from finishing projects and at times it was hard to get motivated again. It’s a rather grim matter and it’s one of the main reasons why things are not going fast enough for me at the moment. I would have liked to release something this year, to make part of my work public (be it music or, well, other things…) but it doesn’t look like this is going to be the case now. i:Vibes: Just a few months ago, a Flutlicht remix for Sumatra – ‘Reincarnation’ was released on the Paradox label. Since this was made early 2002, why did it never get a full release before? A: We were supposed to remix a track that was a remake from an even older track from like 1998 or 1997. But the remake was not finished at the time we had to remix the track. So we actually remixed the old one, the original. And now it seems like it took them so long to finally make the remake. i:Vibes: Your website says that there were two options for Flutlicht and S.H.O.K.K.: to go on with the projects and change their sounds radically, or for you to stop producing for them and leave all the decisions to Natron (Flutlicht) and Giotto (S.H.O.K.K.). It is known that Natron has quit spinning trance now, and is going more towards a techy breaks kind of thing. S.H.O.K.K. is still spinning hardtrance, but we haven’t seen any productions from both Flutlicht and S.H.O.K.K. since you stopped. So it seems like you chose the second option. Have you done anything with them that didn’t get a release in the meantime, or perhaps something just for fun? And what do you think the sounds of both the projects would have been like if you were still with them? A: I can easily imagine what Flutlicht would sound like today. It would probably contain lots of breakbeats, funky stuff and a hint of a melody now and then. It would still be suitable for the clubs. I think if I really would make something for the clubs nowadays it would probably sound more like Timo Maas’ or Hybrid’s stuff. But that’s not what I’m focusing on now. I’m not making dance music at the moment. I’m also still pretty good friends with Daniel these days. It’s likely that we will collaborate again some day. However, I haven’t talked to Claudio in years. I don’t know what he’s up to these days. He’s definitely going his own way. i:Vibes: There were rumors that a ‘modified’ version of S.H.O.K.K.’s ‘My Madness…’ had been made, which would be released as the 4th single. What happened to this one, if the rumors are true? A: It’s true. In fact it was a brand new single containing just the same vocals. It would have been “My Madness… Part 2” or something like that. I must say that I really liked it back then. It was much more “trancey” than the first “My Madness”. But it was rejected by Overdose. It was a very odd decision. They immediately dismissed it and gave a strange reason. I have a version here which is almost finished. It has been kind of temporary mastered and it has a few rough edges. You know I really think we could offer it as a download. I gotta talk to Claudio about it. I will keep you up to date. i:Vibes: As we all know, you have produced for artists like DJ Tatana and DJ Energy, and of course the legendary productions with Flutlicht and S.H.O.K.K. What do you consider to be the best single you ever made? And what about remixes, is there one you like the most out of all your work? A: It’s hard to name a favorite single. I’m usually a bit critical about my own stuff. There’s one that didn’t sell very well (on Sirup Records), it’s called “The Silent You” and it was a solo project called “Unmark”. It’s not really my favorite but many of you probably haven’t heard about it and I liked it. Remixes, well, I liked most of the later Flutlicht mixes. Particularly the one for Talla, the remix for The Thrillseekers, the one for The Freak and the last one we made for Tatana. The best work we did with SHOKK was definitely the last single for me. It was great fun to work with the vocalist and we invested a lot of time in everything. i:Vibes: Both FL and SHOKK leaned more towards the harder side of trance, with Flutlicht being the softer of the two. Were you able to completely identify yourself with these styles? In other words, did you listen to hardtrance yourself as well, did you visit parties etcetera? A: I did visit parties at times, yes. But me and the crowd, we were a bad match. Seriously, I knew I didn’t belong there. I was mostly hanging out in the backstage area. It was funny at times but I felt like I didn’t have much in common with most of the people there. It would be a lie if I told you I could completely identify myself with the styles after everything I’ve told you so far. I could, however, more easily identify myself with Flutlicht, particularly with the (later) remixes. Flutlicht was sometimes like a little baby to me. I could really spend a lot of time on the tracks (mostly the remixes) being obsessed with tiny details. I did not listen to trance very often but I still really liked it. However, I cared a lot more for trance in the months and years before we started with Flutlicht and SHOKK. i:Vibes: We have heard that all of your productions have been made with FruityLoops. Is this true? If so, did you use ány hardware at all? How did you create that distinct sound. Which synths / VST’s? A: It’s not true that all of our productions have been made with FL Studio/FruityLoops, but nowadays, with all the features it has, they could all be done in FL Studio. When I started there wasn’t even VST support in FruityLoops, it was extremely limited. In the beginning I used hardware, yes, but very little. Today I no longer use hardware. I also had a Pulsar, a Powercore and an UAD-1. I don’t have them anymore. But I don’t like to talk about how everything was done, neither about software nor about hardware. It’s not important. In fact it became so irrelevant to me that I’m no longer following news about new releases and updates for the stuff I use. i:Vibes: The main theme of your website during your ‘production days’ always had lots of stuff in it that had to do with washing! Filled with washing machines, temperatures, ironing, bleaching, it was all there. What’s the story behind this, are you a wash-freak? A: Yeah, I’m totally into washing, could do it all day. No wait, I came up with this during my first apprenticeship which had something to do with graphic design (which I aborted). I just fell in love with the symbols and had the urge to use them. For some some reason I think that washing and making music share a transcendental quality. And don’t you think the way the hand reaches down into the water looks somehow godlike? You know, creationism, creation, being creative, making music. Get it? Yeah, I know, I’m not funny. There was really not much thought behind it. It just looked cool. i:Vibes: And now for the big question: will we see (trance) productions surfacing from you ever again? A: Trance productions: definitely no. Other productions: definitely yes. ----------------------- imagine what his records would have been like if he was actually interested in trance! i think the thing that made him so good is the fact that he had other influences. Some trance songs you could listen to for the first time and it could have been a number of producers, but when you heard a shokk tune you could tell it was shokk. I think he could tell that trance was having too many prawn sandwiches. Reverb was a god
