press release - Past the Mark

Marc Urselli (www.marcurselli.com) is a 3-time Grammy Award winning engineer, producer, mixer,
composer and sound designer. He is currently resident chief house engineer at the legendary NYC
studios EastSide Sound and also does live sound on tours with John Zorn, Lou Reed,Laurie Anderson,
Faithful and others. His credits include John Zorn (with whom he recorded over 25 albums), Les Paul,
LouReed, Laurie Anderson, Sting, Joss Stone, Lila Downs, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Faith No More’s
Mike Patton, Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, Bon Jovi’s Richie Sambora, Goo Goo Dolls’
Johnny Rzeznick, ZZ Top, Sam Cooke, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall, Luther
Vandross and many many more. He also composes music for TV and film and does sound design for
commercials and mixing for film and TV. In 2008 alone, he recorded and mixed more than half adozen
movie soundtracks. Marc played in numerous bands in the 90’s, most notably the black metal band
Funeral Oration and the industrialmetal band the M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab (www.memorylab.net) who in
2009 just released their posthumous debut CD of 15-year old recordings on the Canadian record
label D-Trash records. Marc also is founder and editor of Chain D.L.K. (www.chaindlk.com), an online
music magazine/ newswire/forum dedicated to electronic, ambient, experimental, dark music which
receives more than 30,000 monthly visitors.
Vince Pastano (www.vincenzopastano.com) is a very accomplished guitar player based in Bologna,
Italy. He grew up on massive doses of guitar-driven rock and currently plays with Italian pop star
Luca Carboni, as well as with his pulp-rock band Pulp Dogs (www.pulpdogs.it), his new age-ambient
acoustic duo Araliya (www.araliyaofficial.com)and many other projects. He has played as a session
musician on dozen of records and has collaborated with many established Italian singers, songwriters,
composers and producers, such as Lucio Dalla (with whom he played on thetheater production “La
Tosca”), Hiroko Kouda, BeppeD’Onghia, Federico Poggipollini, George Mann, Stef Burns, Barbara
Cola, Roberto Terzani (Litfiba), Adrienne Arno, Ignazio Orlando (CCCP, A. Bocelli, G.Nannini), Riccardo
Sinigallia, Grazia Verasani and manyothers.
Vince released his romantic dark-wave debut solo CD “Compro Verità” on UltraTempo records in
2009 and is currently working on a followup solo CD.
Past the Mark leaves a mark, and goes past that mark.
Other releases from NuJazz Europe
B I O G R A P H I E S
TOKYO:
Satoko Fujii (piano) Natsuki Tamura (Trumpet)
GLASGOW:
Raymond MacDonald (saxes) Neil Davidson (guitar)
Tom Bancroft (drums)
An international collaboration of ‘improv’ music
:-) listen | buy | www.nu-jazz.net
OTHER VOICES
Raymond MacDonald (saxes/piano)
Aoife Mannix (voice).
An improv CD of poetry and jazz recorded live at the
Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, Scotland.
:-) listen | buy | www.nu-jazz.net
All tracks based on stories written for the
Glasgow 2020 project.
Sub-Urban Collective is: Una McGlone, Raymond
MacDonald, Aoife Mannix, Malcolm Lindsay, Stuart
Gorman, Emma Roche, Julio Virella, Pete Fletcher,
Aileen Campbell, Michael Deans, Stephen Hawkes.
:-) listen | buy | www.nu-jazz.net
Nu-Jazz Europe is an independent music label, dedicated to creating
a voice for composers and musicians to collaborate
across musical and geographical boundaries.
Glasgow Scotland | www.nu-jazz.net | petefletcher.bandcamp.com
PRESS
RELEASE
Contact:
Label: ptm@nu-jazz.net
Band: info@pastthemark.com
“The result is an eclectic
mix of influences, styles
and moods with deep
roots in the rock traditions
and the evolutions of
electronic music”
Past the Mark is a transatlantic collaboration between Vince Pastano (one of Italy’s most in-demand
guitar players) and Marc Urselli (New York-based 3-time Grammy award winning producer/ engineer/
composer). The project started as long-distance collaborative-composing experiment back in 2003,
but unfortunately due to their insanely busy schedules, it took a little over 7 years for them to write
enough material for a full album. However, in the meantime, Pastano released at least 5 other records
of his own and Urselli recorded and/or mixed around 100 records in that timeframe.
Musically, Past the Mark is a mixture of the composers’ backgrounds in electronic music and rock.
The production is entirely electronic-based and mixes drum’n bass, ambient, world music and
downtempo into a unique blend of sampled acoustic and electronic sounds. All the melodies, riffs
and counterparts are played by the electric guitar, which is turn is treated, effected, sliced and diced
digitally. The compositional process always started with an idea of either one of the musicians, who
then would send it to the other to continue writing on and around the original idea.
The result is an eclectic mix of influences, styles and moods with deep roots in the rock traditions and
the evolutions of electronic music.
If you need a frame of reference, imagine what would happen if Jeff Beck, Trent Reznor and Brian Eno
got together and wrote some music, and if in turn they were influenced by David Bowie, David Torn,
Aphex Twin, Tom Waits, Autechre, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
Particularly noteworthy is the fact that in spite of all those influences and the fact that they’ve
been writing together for 7 years, the songs onthe album sound quite homogeneous. There is not a
disconnect between songs written in 2003 and songs written in 2010, in fact the different influences
and musical evolutions complement each other quite well and even the musicians themselves still
like the earlier compositions as much as they like the latest.
*All versions of the CD are made with eco-friendly materials.
The title of Past the Mark’s debut CD is “Hakhel Tribulation”.
The CD includes 10 songs for a total running time of 48 minutes and is available in three editions:
1. Digipack available from www.Nu-Jazz.net and www.CDBaby.com
2. Deluxe 3D cover origami version limited to 48 hand numbered copies, exclusively
available through the band’s website at:
www.PastTheMark.com
3. Digital Download available from iTunes and all major download sites.
The deluxe version of the CD features a 3D cover which according to the angle of view shows the face
of one or the other member of the duo. When you open the case the CD is popped out by a pop-up
origami-type cardboard fold-out.