* MARK FARINA (Mushroom Jazz Tour V5, OM, Apt, SF)

w/ Rob Brown (Odds N Ends Records, MTL)

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"I look at my job as a modern day traveling minstrel, to bring new music to as many places as I can, and expose obscure records that, otherwise, might go hidden." While Mark Farina may be able to sum up his job description in a sentence, there is much more to be written.

Mark developed his musical tastes in Chicago - listening to house music on the radio, living in one of the country's most primordial breeding grounds for house. Around '88, while record shopping at Imports, Etc., he met Derrick Carter and a friendship began. "I just ended up there between classes, I ended up buying his picks. He steered me toward the cutting edge House producers of the time."

Living together and working on tracks together along with Chris Nazuka, they utilized the tight connections between the Detroit and Chicago scenes. Fondly, Mark remembers hanging out listening to Detroit Techno classics - Model 500, Derrick May - eating bologne sandwiches on white bread and drinking Kool-Aid out of a paper cup, prepared by none other than Chef Saunderson himself. In '89, they signed on Kevin Saunderson's KMS Records under the Symbols in Instruments moniker and produced a landmark track called "Mood". "Mood" sold 35,000+ copies in the US and the UK. This record was the first ambient house track ever made and, accordingly, it has taken its position as a classic.
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