DJ Marcelle (aka Another Nice Mess) has been a breath of fresh air in the dance music world ever since she first emerged in the mid-2000’s. The Dutch artist’s irreverent aesthetic, ultra-eclectic DJing style and wacky sense of humour make her stand out in a scene that often takes itself a little too seriously. This playfulness extends to Marcelle’s own productions, something her incomparable LP One Place For The First Time attests to.
Marcelle van Hoof has released plenty of mixtapes, singles and EPs in the past, but One Place For The First Time represents her debut full-length of original music - and the emphasis here is firmly on the ‘original’ part of that sentence. One Place For The First Time is one of those records that is full of familiar sounds yet is also unlike anything you’ve ever heard. Marcelle’s carefree, kaleidoscopic approach to music-making puts her alongside other genre-averse artists like Hype Williams, Charlemagne Palestine, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Thighpaulsandra. We even get a bit of a Government Plates-era Death Grips vibe off some of the beat frenzies here - and yet DJ Marcelle’s music is really a world away from Death Grips!
Dub, techno, jungle, singeli and primitive electronics are just a few of the styles that inform One Place For The First Time, but pigeonholing these tracks does them a disservice. Do the throbbing beats of ‘Respect My Snack Foods’ count as drum & bass with all those funny noises whirring away in the background? Ditto ‘Respect Caged Animals’, but with techno. Could you class the manic rhythm experiment of ‘Technicians And Their Smoke Machine’ as breakbeat? What the hell is going on with ‘There!’? Or ‘The Mother Of All Messes’? Or ‘Don’t Touch The Table!’? Or any of it?
One Place For The First Time is one of 2019’s most singular LPs. It has to be heard to be believed - there really is no-one out there quite like DJ Marcelle.
