Biography
MonkeyMarc is a leading producer/DJ from Melbourne, Australia known as the mastermind behind political hip hop group Combat Wombat and more recently for this eclectic solo work (album out December 2009 through Omelette Records). MonkeyMarc also initiated the Labrats Solar Powered Sound System, whose environmentally sustainable parties have impressed audiences throughout the country for over ten years.
MonkeyMarc's career has spanned many genres from punk to dubstep. His musical career started at an early age after his family immigrated to Australia from Cardiff, Wales when he was 13. Starting as a lead singer in a rock band he quickly discovered a love for hip hop, funk and reggae, which lead him to DJing and running parties from the age of 15. He began producing music with a tape machine and a one-second-sampler in the late nineties when his passion for bass lead him towards the sounds of jungle, breaks and hip hop. Eventually he bought himself a drum machine because he couldnt find the records he was looking for.
MonkeyMarc's electronic career debuted in 1997 when he DJd with the infamous All Funked Up Crew Sydney. His love for deep electronic music and strong political ideals lead him on a wild and adventurous track and in 1998 he co-started Labrats Solar Powered Sound System. His first produced release Combat Wombat Labrats Solar Powered Sound System (album) came out in 2001 and was soon followed by Combat Wombat Miraculous Activist in 2002 (12 inch). Both of these album where written in his veggie oil powered vehicle and solar powered caravan. In 2004/05 he produced and wrote the critically acclaimed Combat Wombat Unsound System (Elefant Traks 2005), of which the single Qwest reached number 2 on Triple Js net 50.
His passion for social change and music then took him in to the Australian outback. On and off for the next 7 years he produced music and ran workshops with aboriginal people in remote communities across Australia. Within this time he produced Western Desert Mob Compilation (self released) and a range of as yet unreleased material for aboriginal community archives. He currently spends up to six months of the year running music workshops in remote Aboriginal communities.
In 2006 he began to venture into his solo career and established a solar powered recording studio in a converted shipping container in Melbourne. He remixed Apocalypta The Herd (Elefant Traks) on the Trampled Compilation and later in 2008 remixed Seven Guns and Seven Holes from the DJ Solal (Gotan Project, France) Moonshine Sessions album (Ya Basta Records). In 2009 he remixed Istanbul Engloutie Rafiralfiro (Fresh Poulp Records, France).
MonkeyMarc has just returned from a 3 month pre-release tour of Europe playing at Fusion Festival (Berlin), Glade Festival (UK) and La BelleVilloise (Paris). He has shared the stage with local and international luminaries such as Public Enemy (USA), Dj Spooky (USA), DJ Solal (Gotan Project, France), Anticon (USA), Dose Noun (USA), The Apostles (USA), The Percussionists (USA), Sinpare (Kenya), The Herd (Syd), Curse ov Dialect (Melb), Plutonic Lab, Morganics, Chasm, Diafrix, and TZU amongst many more.
MonkeyMarc's obsession with alternative energy and his strong desire to make a positive change for the future led him to building a solar powered recording studio out of 100% recycled materials which was featured in cult classic magazine Dazed and Confused.
When he is not producing fusion beats, or building recoding studios, he is a desert nomad, travelling the country working in many remote Aboriginal communities across Australia with indigenous kids creating socially conscious hip hop, conducting cultural preservation workshops and oral history recordings. This work has taken him to some of the remotest areas of Australia including, Yiyilli (WA), Nookenbah (WA), Balgo (WA), Mornington (WA), Parngurr (WA), Kintore (NT), Papunya (NT), Yuendamu (NT), Alice Springs (NT), Moree (NSW), Port Augusta (SA), Swan Hill (VIC) and many more. This work has resulted in the popular album, Western Desert Mob, which has received Australia wide airplay.
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