With 14 years of DJ and production experience, Sweden’s Marcus Schössow is no novice—and in 2013, he really put it all to good use.
Coming off a year of heavy touring—which included big shows at London’s Ministry of Sound and Hollywood’s Avalon club— Schössow can also look back on a busy studio schedule, which produced several popular tracks.
Counting up his soaring collaboration with fellow Swede Adrian Lux (“Wild Child” feat. JJ on Ultra), an electro-leaning solo single (“Reverie” on Axtone), two storming collabs with Sebjak (“Liceu” on Size and “Kemi” on Spinnin’), and his latest collab with Mike Hawkins and Pablo Oliveros (the thundering “Ulysses” on Size), Schössow has cranked out five quality singles. He’s been on quite a roll.
Just before “Ulysses” began to climb Beatport’s Progressive House chart, we caught up with the Helsingborg, Sweden-based talent to talk studio and a little geography.
DJ Times: How long have you been DJing? How did you get started?
Schössow: I started when I was about 14. It all started with that the local school DJ broke his leg on the way to his gig and me and my friend had to jump in as replacement.
DJ Times: Tell me about “Wild Child,” your collaboration with Adrian Lux.
Schössow: Adrian had started the project and he showed it to me because he felt a little stuck. So we started to totally redo the whole thing together, and we ended up with a few different versions of it. We did some parts in Miami, some parts in Los Angeles and then we finished up the final versions in my studio in Helsingborg. The inspiration for this track is that feeling of being “young and free.” There are way too many dull things in life that you have to commit to, and we all need to lose ourselves every now and then to get that inner wild child out.
DJ Times: And with “Reverie,” what’s it like having it released on Axwell’s Axtone label?
Schössow: Being on Axtone feels great. It’s one of the places where the best house music is released and I’m proud to be part of that circle. “Reverie” was produced over a period of one to two weeks. There are several versions—even a dubstep version, actually—and I tried to take the best parts out of each version and put them all together.
DJ Times: What producers and/or songs are you into right now?
Schössow: Right now, I’m listening a lot to the album from Washed Out called Paracosm (Sub Pop). It’s a fantastic piece of music that puts timeless into the spot. If you like M83, you will love this record.
DJ Times: It seems as though the Swedish dance music community is very tight-knit. Is there a specific reason for this?
Schössow: We are a small country and we do the best to help each other. Swedes like to work with Swedes, as we think alike, have the same approach, and don’t accept any bullshit. If there is another Swede at a festival that we haven’t met, it’s natural to go and say hi and hang out. There are only a handful of people that do what we do from our small nation, so often, we just speak about life and just have a laugh as we have so much in common.
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