11.08.2021
This month’s mix is a detroit.dance live WORLDWIDE mix – featuring Marie Benz. She is originally from Texas, and has lived in places like Ireland, Italy, France, Africa, and is now living a nomadic life in the states… having spent time recently in the Florida Keys, NYC, and Boston.
Her travels influence her sound, but she does not restrict herself to one genre. We met a few years ago at Movement Electronic Music Festival in the crowd at Pyramid Stage, and it has been lovely watching her blossom in the realm of DJing.
In her interview, we talk about her thoughts on Movement and Detroit, why traveling is important to her, her DJing story, favorite track, hobbies, and more.
I hope you enjoy her mix and features this week.
Each mix will exclusively premiere on Deep Space Radio at noon on Wednesday – and then be available on the detroit.dance SoundCloud as per usual at 3:13pm EST.
Be sure to check out her mix, on SoundCloud now.
detroit.dance: Marie Benz – where does your stage name come from? What is your DJing background?
Marie Benz: The name is still rather new, but it’s based on how everyone in France says ‘Marie”, and coming from Texas a lot of people call me “Maria”. I have so many French connections and French roots that it’ll always be a part of me.
Back in University I had some friends that DJ’d, so I learned a little from them but would mostly stand and watch them. I had the idea while I was in France to finally get myself some equipment, so I went on the French version of Craigslist and found something to practice on and play with at parties. Augustin ended up buying a speaker so what we started doing was going down to the River Seine in Paris and inviting all our friends out for a picnic to mix some tracks. Our mixes would always start with disco, then funk and pop to get everyone warmed up, and move on to house music. We have a lot of influence from Defected Radio in the UK. I really like their style. As the night would progress the music would get into darker and darker techno until we had to leave. That little party of ours grew to where others were getting interested and we would have them out to play too. When we moved back to the US and were in NYC, we decided to sell all that gear and upgrade to a nicer setup. Everything’s been getting better, we’ve been doing lots of park parties, rooftop parties… I like to tell a story when I mix so it’s always fun.
detroit.dance: Do you have a favorite track or two at the moment?
Marie Benz: An artist we saw in France – his name is Yuksek – he has this dancey, disco house, french house vibe. I’ve been listening to a lot of his stuff and playing a lot of it lately as well. His recent song “Cadenza” is pretty good.
detroit.dance: So it seems like you just kind of play what feels good and don’t limit yourself to one genre?
Marie Benz: No, I don’t really want to limit myself to a single sound. I could, but I’d rather not. It depends on my mood. I like to play dark, harsh techno but I also like to play dance-y stuff. I feel like the biggest problem in the DJ world nowadays is the race and obsession with “the underground”. It’s all a race to the bottom. While I like the underground sound to an extent, it’s a lot of gatekeeping and exclusivity obsession right now. I’m trying not to fall into that trap and just stick with what I like, and be confident in what I like.
detroit.dance: Do you have an idea of where you want to be in a year?
Marie Benz: I think it would be cool to play a set on a bigger club stage at some point. We were going to a lot of open deck nights in NYC so it was nice to see the local talent and people there. There’s a couple other concept mixes I’d like to do and put out there. The one I made for you is inspired by my time in France and NYC, using songs that I personally associate with the two places. I want to put out a disco set, a techno set, and push myself to create more mixes with ambiance and storytelling.
Augustin will think it’s really cheesy that I’m saying this, but for example take GTA – there is a station called Radio Broker that describes Brooklyn SO well. They do a great job of getting a punk Brooklyn vibe that creates the right ambiance when you’re driving through the rain. That’s what I want to do with my DJing is create the right atmosphere, and music is the tool.
detroit.dance: We met a few years ago at Movement Electronic Music Festival (Detroit), what are your thoughts on that festival and our city?
Marie Benz: I went to Movement one year after my exchange in Europe. And what I discovered is that electronic music is very different in Europe… and I kind of already knew that, but if you think of the big festivals they have like Tomorrowland, that’s all “festival house”. When you go to a club in general, it’s a lot more house and techno oriented. In Milan, some friends of mine introduced me to the European sound which is what I started seeking out more and more when I came back to the States. At that time it was a bit harder to find, and sometimes it still depends on location, but it’s possible.
I had heard about Movement from a friend in Milan as well. I figured out when it was and planned on stopping in Chicago to see some of my friends there while on my way to the festival. I was going to take the train to Detroit from there. But, I needed a place to stay, so I made a post in the infamous EDM Chicago FB group to try and find someone to share a room with. I found this girl who was down, and it was very spontaneous. We met for the first time at the Amtrak station in Chicago and spent the whole weekend together. We talked a lot about music and how we were excited to go to the festival for the first time.
I knew Detroit was the birthplace of techno so it was great to finally have an opportunity to explore that. I had already explored a bit into the roots of Chicago house, so I was excited to see the Detroit side of things. Detroit is an interesting city where it’s not in its heyday anymore, but there’s still so much life to it. I really liked downtown, I loved the plaza, being on the river. It was so weird to see the Canadian border on the other side. What I found at Movement is that people were really nice. We met you, you were super cool. All the people were filled with such good vibes. The festival is really well done. The venues are really cool, you can tell how they make up the framework of the old city history… I went to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn afterwards, and I really enjoyed seeing the history of Detroit in that aspect too.
detroit.dance: What do you do for work?
Marie Benz: I’m a business developer for a tech company, in software sales. I do all my work from home which is nice. Sometimes I go to a café to work to get out of the house. Lots of Zoom calls, phone calls, and stuff like that but I get to talk to a lot of different people which to me is pretty cool.
detroit.dance: What are some things you are interested in?
Marie Benz: I like music a lot, sewing, and traveling. Right now as my partner and I travel the US we are living out of Airbnb’s which can be really stressful at times, like right now as we speak I am looking for housing in Brooklyn for next month. But it’s cool, it’s really spontaneous and adventurous. Fashion design is more of a personal hobby, I’ve had some people ask me to make them some things but that’s on the back burner. I really like the construction element of working with my hands when I do that. Combining the engineering side of my brain with the creative side.
detroit.dance: Why is traveling important to you?
Marie Benz: I grew up in Austin, Texas, which is a wonderful place, but I always wanted to get out there more. I never got many opportunities to travel a lot, we went to Colorado to go camping a few times, but that was about it. Then I reluctantly went to school in Austin as well so my first chance I could get out I really took it… my first really big trip was to Europe and it was for six months – two months backpacking and four months on exchange. I really went all out. I was using only buses, trains and planes for two months and I found it difficult… but I really liked seeing everything, meeting new people, and learned so much. I really feel like my eyes were opened after that. I spent four months in Italy in Milan doing my exchange and from there I discovered a love for different types of people around the world. Traveling was something that instantly clicked. It’s a part of me. After that experience, I knew I wanted to keep traveling and going where I wanted when I wanted to go. I went to Mexico, I went to Detroit where I met you, and so many other places. It’s an addiction. After talking to random people about random cities they’ve been to, you just add it to your growing list and go there too one day. It’s fun. The places that you call home and where you are presently are really important.
detroit.dance: Do you have a top place you’ve been to so far? Why?
Marie Benz: I’d say my favorite and the most interesting place I’ve been to so far was Côte D’ivoire. It is really unique. My partner Augustin and I were living in France and we wanted to spend a semester in another French speaking country, so we went to Africa. It gave me an opportunity to practice my French more, and I had zero clue of what to expect. It was a really pleasant surprise because everyone there is so kind, so happy, and interested to talk to new people. They didn’t care about your accent, they didn’t care about your ability to speak perfectly. It’s a very different world over there, and I really enjoyed it. We were supposed to stay for six months and only ended up being there for two months, because COVID happened so we decided to leave and come back to the States. Everything was so uncertain and we definitely want to go back one day.
detroit.dance: What is a phrase or word in French that you like?
Marie Benz: I like the concept of “réaliser” which is to realize, but in the context of “Réalisez vos rêves” which means make your dreams come true or more literally: “realize your dreams; make them real”. It’s the same concept with directors, they are called “réalisateur” because they make the movie and the idea real.
Keep up with Marie Benz on her socials: