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Mark Farina, Kaskade

Dream Machine - Kaskade Mix

Kaskade's mix of Dream Machine, the tender song Mark Farina made with Sean Hayes for his 2003 Om Records album Air Farina, released a month later as the closing track of the To Do single: two Chicago-born DJs of San Francisco's house scene on one record.

By korczis 3 min read
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Review

Genre and Mood

Mark Farina wrote Dream Machine as a quiet song, and Kaskade remade it for the house scene they shared as Dream Machine (Kaskade Mix). The genres here are the mix’s world, house and deep house, electronic music for clubs. The feelings, dreamy and melancholic, come from the song: a critic called the original “a tender, melancholy peach of a tune”. No review we could find describes the Kaskade Mix itself.

Song Summary

Dream Machine began on Air Farina, Farina’s first full-length album, released by Om Records in October 2003. Sean Hayes sang it; Westword heard “Hayes’s delicate tenor” on “a banjo-and-wah-guitar-complemented number”, and PopMatters heard a “quirky pop-folk-rock song” by a singer who “sounds uncannily like Michael Stipe”, “more suited to college radio than clubs.” Om’s own history adds a rumour: it was recorded in a closet at Farina’s house when Hayes lived next door. The Kaskade Mix took that song to the clubs.

Musical Breakdown

No source walks through the Kaskade Mix, so this breakdown asks questions rather than giving answers.

Intro

At 6:15 the mix has a club length. Listen for how it opens and how long it waits before the song itself appears.

Main Section

The original’s colours were Hayes’s tenor, a banjo and a wah guitar. Notice which of them Kaskade keeps, and what he sets underneath them.

Outro

The mix is the last track of the To Do single; listen for how it leaves room to mix out.

Concepts in Focus

A remix can move a song between worlds. Dream Machine was the album’s tender interlude in a set of grooves; in the Kaskade Mix the same song is reworked by a house producer for a house single. Compare it with the downtempo original and you hear what a remixer decides a song is really about.

The To Do single is built for the dj mix: the original extended mix of To Do, Kaskade’s Carry On Mix, Derrick Carter’s Farina Experiment and this Dream Machine mix, each between six and seven minutes, long enough to blend.

Artistic Context

Farina, originally from Chicago, is of the same generation as Derrick Carter and Cajmere and had a large hand in building San Francisco’s house music scene; he is best known for the Mushroom Jazz series and a down-tempo but dancefloor-friendly mix of jazz, house and hip-hop. Kaskade, born Ryan Raddon in Chicago in 1971, moved to San Francisco in 2000 to work in A&R at Om Records and released his own house debut, It’s You, It’s Me, in 2003. PopMatters noted the support Farina got from his stablemate on the album’s track To Do.

Impact and Reception

The song travelled. Its downtempo mix appeared on Hôtel Costes 8, the series that put The Limp Twins – Sunday Driver on volume 7, and Om chose Dream Machine for its 25-year retrospective in 2020: “What a tune!” Play the original and the Kaskade Mix back to back.

Learn from this track

Introductory

What you will learn

  • Compare a downtempo song with the house-scene remix made of it for a club single.
  • Explain why a single carries several mixes and who each one is for.
  • Place Mark Farina and Kaskade in the San Francisco house scene of the early 2000s.

Listening guide

  1. the voice Sean Hayes's delicate tenor carries the original; listen for whether and where the Kaskade Mix keeps it.
  2. the original's colours The banjo and wah guitar a critic heard on the album version; notice which of them survive the remix.
  3. the length At 6:15 the mix is a club length, close to the other three mixes on the To Do single, made for DJs to blend.

Concepts in this track

dj mix

20 tracks

A continuous sequence of tracks blended by a DJ so that one flows into the next. Extended and club mixes exist so that DJs have long intros and outros to mix with.

remix

164 tracks

A new version of a recording made by reworking its parts: changing the beat, harmony, tempo or structure, often by another producer. A remix can turn a ballad into a club track.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. A critic called the original a tender, melancholy song more suited to college radio than clubs. What has to change for it to work in a club, and what should stay?
  2. The To Do single put four mixes on one release. Why would a DJ want an extra mix of a different song at the end?
  3. Farina and Kaskade were both born in Chicago and made their names in San Francisco. How can a city that is not your home shape your sound?

References

  1. Om Records. To Do (2003). Label
  2. MusicBrainz. To Do (Om Records). Database
  3. PopMatters. Mark Farina: Air Farina (2003). Review
  4. Westword. Mark Farina (2004). Review
  5. Om Records. Om Records - 25 Years (2020). Label
  6. Apple Music. Mark Farina on Apple Music. Database
  7. Wikipedia. Kaskade. Encyclopedia

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