Name: Marina Zispin
Members: Bianca Scout, Martyn Reid
Current release: Marina Zispin's new album Now You See Me, Now You Don't is out via Scenic Route.
Recommendation for Glasgow, Scotland: A very romantic thing to do in Glasgow: hear the organ played at Kelvingrove Art Gallery at 3 PM on a Sunday.
Shout-outs:
Martyn: Versalife is someone who is always taking electro to new places. I'm always excited about what he's gonna do next.
Scout: Shout out to Life is Beautiful, Exit Glasgow, Curl Recordings crew, and the collective at The Horse Hospital, London. ♡

[Read our Boris Bunnik aka Versalife interview]

If you enjoyed this Marina Zispin interview and would like to know more about the duo and their music, visit them on Instagram.  



What were some of the musical experiences which planted a seed for your interest in electronic music?  

Martyn: I was obsessed with horror as a child so my first exposure to electronic music was from 80s horror movies.

John Carpenter's scores for Halloween III and The Fog and John Harrison's score to Creepshow stand out in particular.



When I got into stuff like Kraftwerk as a teenager I could see a lot of similarities.

Another pivotal moment in my life was discovering Information Overload Unit by SPK when I was around 15. It's curiously overlooked in the canon of noise. There's still nothing else like it.



Scout: I’m feeling nostalgic answering this question, so I’ll stick to my pre-2008 references—after that, it was all about the beauty of the charts in 2010 and gigs in South London in 2012.

But when I was 10, I remember seeing an ad for The Prodigy on TV and thinking, WHAT IS THIS? Then came secretly listening to Venetian Snares in math class, playing Tekken with chiptune in the background, hanging out with gabba heads in the park, going to see Imogen Heap when I was 13 and being obsessed with her vocal layering effects, and realizing that Postal Service was just a more electronic Death Cab for Cutie.

Oh, and "Intermission" from Panic! At The Disco’s iconic album—it’s basically a shitty club loop, but it stuck with me.



Most genres of music make use of electronic production means. What does the term “electronic music” mean today, would you say?  

Martyn: Nearly all modern music is electronic but after all these years I still think there are people out there who pride themselves on being into "real music" and still have this notion of electronic music as being  sterile or soulless etc. So nothing much has changed in that regard.

People who would describe themselves as making electronic music are content to expose the wires and have fun with it. This applies to us too.

I think electronic music doesn't necessarily have to be about exploring new technology. I don't even use a computer to make our music but it's electronic.

Scout: I guess, for me, electronic music means getting your sound from a piece of equipment and using it like an instrument—whether that’s hardware, plug-ins, or samples. Even if the sample is ‘acoustic,’ it’s still electronically produced.

I grew up mainly listening to electronic music but lately, along with others I've spoken to, been somewhat disappointed by most new releases. I'd be curious about your own view on this, the “creative health” of the scene and potential reasons for the disappointment.  

Martyn: Making electronic music has become more accessible than ever but this has probably led to it becoming oversaturated with opportunists and a lot of them probably aren't all that interested in whether it actually sounds good or not but are just really good at self promotion and networking.

My pet peeve in electronic music is the trend of way too much reverb on everything and terrible overcompressed mastering which is an unlistenable combination.

Having said that, I think there's lots of amazing stuff going on now. You just have to look for it. I know what I'm looking for so I'm usually more impressed than disappointed with new stuff.

Scout: I’m not disappointed at all. The stuff I’m hearing from people around me—what they’re writing and creating themselves—I’m so here for. It’s exciting to witness all these inner worlds coming to the surface, using whatever’s available to make music.

What were some of the recent releases, or performances of electronic music that left a deep impact on you?  

Martyn: The recent works of ERP (Gerard Hanson) have really impressed me. He's someone who's obviously very skilled at what he does but his music never sounds like it's trying too hard. He has a real honest approach to it and you can tell it's second nature to him.

It's emotional music too but in a way that isn't contrived in the slightest … it reminds me a lot of Aphex in that regard.



I will say the same about Heinrich Dressel - rich both sonically and emotionally and whose recent releases have been superb.



Scout: Actually, the show we did at Exit in Glasgow—Chardonnay Emerald’s performance really stuck with me. She brought a hammer on stage and started hitting something (I have no idea what), and it was hilarious but also just made sense.

In between that, she was singing, playing the violin and the theremin. The hammer was just another one of her instruments.

What kind of musical/sonic materials, and ideas are particularly stimulating for your work right now?

Scout: Any records recorded by nuns.  

Where do most of your inspirations to create come from – rather from internal impulses or external ones? Which current social / political / ecological or other developments make you feel like you need to respond as an artist?  

Martyn: For me it's internal. I have no interest in capturing the zeitgeist or anything.

Art for me is a mystical thing and a lot of things we write about make little sense at the time; its drawn from the subconscious but a meaning is often eventually revealed months or years later … like messages from the future.

Scout: I respond because I’m alive.

The internal urge comes from witnessing the external. Melody is a surge, and there’s nothing like recording something that doesn’t physically exist yet—then suddenly, it’s real, outside of you.

We’re all responding to the world around us, artist or not. That’s not to dismiss the role of artists—I recognize the transient, transformative nature of art—but I don’t feel a call to make things as a direct response.

If something makes its way into the work, it’s because it’s already a part of life, and part of my life is recording and performing.

Music has become a lot more global, and incorporating elements from other parts of the world or the musical spectrum is commonplace. Do you still think there are city scenes with a distinct, unique sound? How does your local scene influence your work?  

Scout: Of course. Even with access to music from everywhere, where you live—your streets, your people—it all shapes what you create.

Martyn: The idea of a city with a specific sound probably has less relevance in the age of the internet where people can collaborate with anyone globally at the click of a button. People also now have less consideration  for genre conventions so that's good.

For me personally; I discovered electronic, industrial, noise etc as a teenager by reading about it in books and magazines well before I was aware of any local scene, so consequently what was going on locally didn't have much impact or influence on me and that's still the case today. Music for me is an escape from people, reality and life in general.

Not knocking scenes though cause I think it's cool when you get people who genuinely support each other in a local scene. Glasgow seems good for that in particular ...  but when you get scenes of people who are very cliquey and all pretty much doing the same thing, then that's a turn off.

Today, electronic music has an interesting relationship between honouring its roots and exploring the unknown. What does the balance between these two poles look like in your music?  

Martyn: I think we have a pretty good balance. A few people remark that we are 80s sounding but that's not really intentional - I love analog synths and drum machines and I'm a fan of a lot of electronic music from that period so inevitably it'll come out in our music in some way but we're not a revival act.

I think some people do that whole 80s goth revival sound in such a calculated way that it ends up sounding like an insincere pastiche.

Everything we do is guided by the mood of the moment - and in that moment we have no consideration for those two poles. We're more focused on what sounds good to us at the time.

Scout: To me, honoring roots and exploring the unknown are the same thing.

What I know about my roots, as an English person, comes from a legacy of repression and moral doctrine about the ‘right’ way to believe and behave. So, to explore roots is to dive into the unknown—tracing fragments, finding new threads, keeping yourself open.

To truly dig into yourself, you have to be prepared to face what you thought you knew and be okay with letting it go.

How much potential for something “new” is there still in electronic music? What could this “new” look like?

Scout: Omg—only as much potential as you allow yourself to be open to. If you’re too focused on being liked or being ‘good,’ I dunno …

Newness is always happening. And for a lot of people, hearing something obscure from 100 years ago is new. So does that technically make it new? If it’s new to you, then yeah, it still is.

What were some of the recent tools you bought, used, or saw/read about which changed your perspective about production, performing, and making music?

Martyn: I definitely have gear acquisition syndrome although I'm still drawing inspiration from my older synths. Some of the slightly newer things we have enjoyed playing with is the Yamaha reface CS, the Behringer Edge and their clone of the Pearl Syncussion have also been a lot of fun

Scout: Haha, I’m just now finding versions of my favorite gear that can do what my Boss ME-50/80 and Boss R3-50 do—without weighing down my suitcase.

Do you think that there is a limit to what can be done in sound design – and what defines these limits?  

Scout: Haha, like what? Has someone actually been saying there’s a limit?

In as far as it is applicable to your work, how would you describe the interaction between your music and DJing/DJ culture and clubs?   

Martyn: It's always fun the few times we've  heard people playing our stuff in DJ sets. Nothing much to add to this except we welcome it!

How, would you say are your live performances and your recording projects connected at the moment? How do they mutually influence and feed off each other?   

Scout: I love how with Marina Zispin’s latest album, nearly half the songs were developed while we were on tour—expanding melodies in rehearsals, testing things live. I’ve done that a bit with my solo work, but because Marina’s song structures are so clear, you can really get into crafting the song.

We hype each other up so much live that by the time we record, there’s already such a history with each track. It’s completely different from recording solo, which feels more like being totally blind in discovery mode.

Even if AI will not entirely replace human composition, it looks set to have a significant impact on it. What does the terms composing/producing mean in the era of AI, do you feel?

Martyn: People have always looked for easier ways to compose/produce with the minimum effort well before AI was a thing and the resultant music will always feel opportunistic and cynical. So maybe not much will change.

You can feel when someone has a close connection to what they do and I don't think AI can reach that. It's an intangible thing. you just know when you hear it.

Scout: Even before AI, so much of this world has been manufactured and manipulated. If AI makes a song I like, I’ll listen to it—but if it’s pretending to be made by a person, then that’s messed up. But honestly, that already happens in so many ways.

What really worries me about AI is the biases—the racist, homophobic programming that seeps into everything it’s used for. That’s the bigger issue.