Octex (Jernej Marušič) - ZVO.ČI.TI (So.und.ing) 2010

Octex, Jernej Marušič, (text by: Luka Zagoričnik)

Hidden behind the name Octex is the Ljubljana-based artist Jernej Marušič, who started appearing under this name, a shorter version of Organic Crackle and Tone EXperiments, in the late nineties of the previous century – as a follower of contemporary currents in electronic music and a lover of analogue sound synthesisers. His first released composition ‘Nigljana’ was included in a varied compilation of Slovene electronic music Elektrotehnika Slavenika from the year 2000, which was issued with wide acclaim as a supplement to the British music monthly The Wire. His LP debut ‘Idea Lashna’, by and large one of the most groundbreaking and creative achievements in the Slovene electronic scene, was released in 2002 under Tehnika Records label, having wide reverberations also abroad. The critics recognised it as a top-notch product following the stripped-down aesthetic characteristic of musicians signed under the German label Basic Channel, while the album offered a finely tailored mix of techno, ambient music, and dub as an echo and a reaction to contemporary, nervous sound landscape of urban circles. The album earned Marušič the then influential Slovene music award ‘Bumerang’, awarded by Studio City programme of the Slovene National Television, while in France it was voted one of the ten finalists for the electronic music award presented by Radio France International. That said, Marušič’s music making does not stick to proven recipes and a solidified sound aesthetic. In an on-going, restless search for a new sound, Octex absorbs various trends that schizophrenically spring from the field of electronic musics, incorporating them again and again in its own music in a distinctly unique and recognisable manner. Already with his next album ‘Variations’, released by RX:TX in 2005, Marušič found himself in an altogether new world, which drew on a tense and intense techno connection between Berlin and Detroit, traversed by dub, soft sound textures, and complex, seemingly unstructured rhythms, with which he stepped out of the prescribed matrix 4/4 and which have today become a trademark for Marušič’s work. Around that time, Marušič also started to regularly appear live; he did remixes for well known artists, like Laibach and Ultra-Red, while reverberations of his work also took him across our borders. He performed, for example, in a London-based series Sprawl, in Club Transmediale in Berlin, in Dispatch in Belgrade, and at Exit Festival in Novi Sad. With the album in question, Octex also signed to the home RX:TX label, in the frame of which he performed alongside artists under labels such as Raster-Noton, contributed tracks to two international compilations ‘Progress’ and ‘Progress EX 0.4’, both released by the mentioned label, and was featured on a highly appreciated Slovene compilation ‘Trans Slovenia Express Vol.2’, dedicated to the cult band Kraftwerk and released by the British Mute Records. Earlier this year, RX:TX released Octex’s long-awaited new album titled ‘Every Sound Tells a Story’, which is this time lined more explicitly with an analogue sound of modular sound synthesisers, sifted through digital technology. Individual tracks from the album were inspired by fieldwork recordings, which are in a processed form blended into each track. Dino Lalić, a music critic for Radio Student, wrote the following about the album. ‘Its sound readily admits techno, dub, and ambient influences, with none of them standing out in particular. The fact that these influences remain merged offers a myriad of interpretations. Nobody is right and whoever says he is – is inevitably wrong’. These words fitly capture the essence of the restless, yet sound-wise well-tailored creativity of Jernej Marušič, which he lately also incorporates into improvisation, both in his solo performances and in his work in the trio Ago Tela, which includes, besides Marušič, also DJ Dojajo and Mario Marolt, while at the same t