Dj Marcelle/another Nice Mess
Dj Marcelle: The Musical
Tina Turner. Princess Diana. Johan Cruijff. Jesus. Abba. Spider-Man. Jerry Springer. Mormons. A brothel. Monty Python. A gay remake of Shakespeare. Anne Frank. Nothing and no-one seems to be able to escape the fangs of the musical industry. So it's no real surprise that the last woman standing, DJ Marcelle/Another Nice Mess, has also fallen victim to this evil fate. The album, after last year's 'Explain The Food, Bitte' her second release with Berlin label Play Loud! Productions, is as surprising and up-to-date as ever. Marcelle's productions come into existence quite quickly, like sketches capturing a moment. Take, for example, 'The Quarantine House Party Try-Out,' a bouncy track dealing with those illegal parties people organised in their own homes during the COVID period. With the pandemic now hopefully over, the DJ/producer travels the world again. Marcelle deals with this in 'Soups On Tour,' related to a link on her website where she documents all soups she eats on the road (and in restaurants). It's this individual approach to her creative process that gives her artistic fulfillment; her D.I.Y. attitude is inherent to everything she does and is reflected in her creative process as a whole, from the music itself to how it is presented: on the sleeve of 'DJ Marcelle: The Musical' we see her literally 'dropping' a musical. The freedom she grants herself is essential, she never had the difficulty of coping with certain expectations or being stuck with a certain perceived musical (ha!) profile, because she has always been able to make sure people didn't have any anticipation of where her music (and DJ-sets) would go in the first place. So it's no real surprise that, following danceable tracks like 'Voted Best DJ School (25% Off') and weird album opener/warning 'This Record Is Scratched' on side A, we get only one track on side B: the 17-minute-plus technoid stomper 'Smacznego!' (Polish for 'enjoy your meal'). It's a hypnotic, continually shifting track which, even when it ends after such a long time, leaves you hungry for more. The hilarious promo video of the song hopefully satisfies this appetite. So now we have DJ Marcelle also being exploited as a musical. There is one consolation, though: 'DJ Marcelle: The Musical' happens to be the first instrumental musical in the world!