About Marsen Jules

Marsen Jules is one of the aliases for the musical output of Martin Juhls from Dortmund, Germany. As Marsen Jules he concerns himself with compression of atmosphere and emotion in the most abstract sense, based on carefully selected sound fragments and quotations. Maybe one could think of ordinary sampling, but Marsen Jules processes another step further. Neither the sampled sound nor the Instrument itself is centered in his work, actually its the particular moment, where the authenticity, emotion and overall atmosphere is reflected at the most; the moments that in the ordinary way of listening remain hidden to the usual listener. Moments that are caught and extracted by Marsen Jules, to increase their density, to extend into length and arrange them in continuous loops within a temporal environment. The results are almost static sonorous pictures full of emotion and expression, whose filigrane movements reflect equally riot and composure to the fullest. His first two Creative Commons-licensed and freely downloadable MP3-Albums were released on Autoplate, although they are no longer available from the label site itself since it folded in 2008. The third Marsen Jules Album has been released on Berlin based City Centre Offices in early 2005. Simply translated as "autumn leaves", Herbstlaub offers an ethereal narrative that accompanies both its title and artwork perfectly. Martin sets out to paint a picture made up entirely of sounds, layer by layer you find yourself at first engulfed by a sparse hedding of leaves, (turning into a deep hue of rusty brown before your very eyes), the air starts to thicken, the atmosphere closes in as the leaves form a weave across the horizon and dusk turns the world into an intimate, impossibly romantic space. The soundtrack evolves without the interference of beats or unnecessary padding: its an exposed, infinitely evocative study of emotion and space without a hint of academic intention or impenetrable experimentation. Everything around you starts to unfurl with endless strings and delicate loops that don't seem to have a beginning or an end - an autumnal symphony built with the greatest respect for tradition, but that couldn't have been made at any other point in time except this - the juncture weve reached where technology enables tradition to hide under so many mysterious, impossible layers. It's a symphony carefully constructed, designed to draw you into its sweet tasting, thick fog. Step inside and, like us, you won't want to come back out for a while.