Markus’ own musical history began in 1999, at the brink of the new millennium an interest in electronic music was awakened in the young, Germany-based Markus. At the time it was less about committing to one musical direction, than about the excitement of DJing and testing sonic limits. Carried along by the excitement of these inital impressions Markus began to teach himself to mix and within a few short years his first productions followed.
USQ: What was the set up used to record USQMX21 and where was it recorded?
I've used two Turntables, two CD-Players and a two-channel mixer. I've recorded the mix in my bedroom at home.
USQ: Tell us a little bit about Markus Suckut?
Well, I was born 1987 and I life in a small village near Duesseldorf, Germany. I am into electronic music since 1999 I guess.
USQ: How do you define your musical style?
USQ: Which are your biggest influences at the moment to produce music, and why?
My surrounding, friends and everything what happens inspires me somehow.
USQ: How is the process of making your music? Do you have a pre-idea before making something or just let everything come out in the moment? Tell us about that?
Sometimes I have an idea, sometimes I haven't and I just go with the flow. I use a mixture of analogue and software for producing my music. I hope to collect some more analogue gear in the future, because it's a lot of fun to have your hands on drummachines and synthesizers.
USQ: We have seen your appearances on Stroboscopic Artefacts and Figure SPC, two very important labels nowadays. How did you get to release music there?
After i've heard the first three couple releases of Stroboscopic Artefacts and I really liked that stuff, I was like, just giving it a try and I've send a few tracks to Lucy. I guess a few days later he answered and he wanted to give me a call, he told me about the future projects, at this time it was the Monad Series and no one knew about it, and he asked me if I would like to get involved. I said yes and things went like they are right now.
For the Figure SPC stuff, I have send Len nearly a year before the first release some Tracks, they were harder, it was more thought for Figure. He liked that stuff, made edits of some tracks, but he never wanted to release it. But he told me, that I should keep him up to date. So we kept in touch, I've send him a huge package and the Figure SPC J was born few weeks later. It's a huge honor for me to be a part of that Figure crew, because I followed him for some years and I also have a couple of Podium and Figure releases at home on vinyl. We really keep in touch and keep our selfs up to date once a week and you can expect more stuff on Figure SPC in the future I guess, but I don't want to release to much details for that right now. I really feel home there and it's a huge family. You simply should have an eye on that.
USQ: How does the idea come to make SPC K (Figure SPC) with Jeroen Search? How was the work method to make that release?
Jeroen and I have met a month before the release of SPC J or so in Cologne. He was playing live there and Cologne is not that far away from where I am living at the moment. We had some chat via Facebook before. So we finally met in Cologne that day, we had dinner together, talked a lot and were kidding around that we should produce some tracks together. Some days later Jeroen was sending me some loops he has recorded with his analogue gear. He asked me if I could work out that stuff and I did. That's how we got together. Sadly we never were together in the same studio, we were sending a lot of loops back and forth and discussed everything via chat.
After we've finished the first track “JSMS1.0”, we thought it just would make sense to release it on Figure SPC because we are both artists of that nice label. You know, Jeroen is somehow the reason why Figure SPC came real. So we've send Len that track, told him our idea and he was totally into it from the first second and asked for more material for an EP. The whole process started again then, it took some weeks to get it all together, cause we have totally different ways for producing but in the end it was totally worth it and we became close friends.
USQ: We can see SCKT is on the road and is going to be “vinyl only”. Tell us the main reason to do not want to make a digital/vinyl (both formats) label and what’s behind this project.
The main idea is just to release my own stuff and the good thing is that I have no rules for that, I will be able to do what I want. I have 100% control of the music and the artwork. Also the artwork, which will be always be black and white, I always will do on my own. So you will get 100% me when you hold a SCKT record in your hands. I will keep it vinyl only, because I still believe into that kind of medium, you have something beautiful in your hands and not just a crappy file on your computer. I guess the whole music industry has huge problems since all that digital stuff developed. I have started Djing with vinyl ten years ago, I also tried out that digital djing for a period of time... but somehow I came back to my roots, I guess it was a sign somehow. It's not the same to dj with a laptop. It sucks that everyone calls himself a dj just because that person knows how to use that sync function... If you will give them two vinyl records, I bet, they won't be able to mix them... Those people never went through the history of our music which we are doing. Also I hate it, to come into a club and nothing works, nothing is connected right or you have acoustic feedbacks and if you ask me, it's also sad to have a technician in a club that doesn't know how to solve a problem... or knows where the mistake is... We never had those kind of problems before all that digital stuff! That are some reasons why I will keep it vinyl only.
USQ: Which has been the place you remember the most, among all those places you have been playing? And why?
It was Techno Revolution in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. Everything worked out so well, it was really the best party I have played, it was in an old fabric for cigarette filters and the crowd totally went crazy. Also I enjoyed everything around the party, the promoters and I had a nice day, the showed me their city and I had some typical russian food.
USQ: What’s coming from Markus Suckut in the next months?
Of course I am working on more material for Figure SPC and SCKT. There will be a 12” released on Repitch, the label from Ascion, D. Carbone and Shapednoise, including a really cool remix by Marcelus and there will be a few remixes I've done. Last but not least there's coming the debut EP on my label SCKT beginning of 2012 but I guess the best to be up to date is my website or my facebook page.
USQ: Top 5 of best tracks ever for you?
Hard to pick, so I choose simply 5 of the tracks which never leave my iPod.
Joy Division – She's Lost Control
Radiohead – Idioteque
No More – Suicide Commando
Portishead – Machine Gun
Grauzone - Eisbär
