It's been a really good year for you with releases on some top labels and tours around the globe. What where some of the highlights for you in 2010?

As I see myself first as a DJ and than as a producer, it has always been an ambition for me to travel around as a DJ and play gigs in different countries one day. So my highlights in 2010 has definitely been to get the chance to play a lot of gigs around Europe. I think it’s really a privilege to travel around as a dj and playing the music you love.

Don’t get me wrong I like to play in Germany as well, especially here in Berlin as you probably still have the best partys here. But on the other hand, it’s really nice to meet people from different countries with different cultural backgrounds and to speak with them about their view on the electronic music scene and spending a good time together with them. This always has a big influence on my work as a producer as well. Maybe it’s a good chance to say a special thank you to my friends from the Luxury Afterhours in Bucharest Cosmo, Nusha & Cris Junior and to Tolga, Tan and Koray from the Overnight Team in Turkey. I really enjoyed to share this magic moments with you and I am really looking forward to come back this year.

But at the end, I have to say that all gigs have been a special experience for me and it’s good to see that you still can find people all of the world fighting for the same thing. Another highlight in 2010 of course has been to launch our label Soulfooled as it has been a big wish of mine to run an own label since a long time. But all in all I can say that 2010 has been a really good year for me.

Speaking of your label 'Soulfooled', can you tell our listeners about the idea behind the label and its plans for the future?

Soulfooled is the label of Alex Niggemann, Superlounge and me. I think beside producing or djing, to run your own record label is another good possibility to spread your own vision of the music you like and this is exactly the reason why we’ve decided to start the label. With Soulfooled we want to show the whole range of electronic music we like. So everything can be possible, but at the end it’s more or less house music in all its facets as house music is where we all coming from. Beside our Soulfooled label we’ve just launched our sublabel 'Soulfooled Detailed'. While we’re releasing double a-sides from two different artists and a digital bonus remix of each track on Soulfooled we are concentrating on whole artist EPs on Soulfooled Detailed. On the label, we are looking for a mixture of well known artists as well as some new talented producers which I have to say aren’t so easy to find these days as a lot of them sounds the same. So we’re really happy that beside tracks and remixes from well known artists like Audiofly, Phonique or David Durango we have found Terje Bakke, a really talented producer and dj from Norway, who did the first release on our sublabel Soulfooled Detailed.

Currently out is our Collective EP including tracks of Alex Niggemann, Superlounge and me. The first record this year coming up in February will feature some new remixes from already released tracks. The remixes are coming from Solomun, Roberto Rodriguez and Salvatore Freda. You already can hear some of the forthcoming tracks in my dj-mix I did in the context of this ‘Artist of the Week’ feature.  

Beside the continuous releases, we’re just planning some other things around the label like different label partys to push the Soulfooled brand further. I think it’s getting more and more important these days to spread your wings in different directions as you won’t earn much money with just releasing some tracks.  

Many know you via your project Solar & Poppcke (with Daniel Solar) and your joint releases on Diynamic and Plastic City. Can we expect more Solar & Poppcke collaboration in the future?

I’m sure there will be more collaborations some day in the future but currently nothing is planned. Working together with other artists always means to accept compromises because a track isn’t your track 100%. I think that has been the main reason why we’ve currently stopped to work together.  We’ve reached a point where we both wanted to go our own way, find our own style and producing our own tracks without compromises. Beside this I have to say that the Solar & Poppcke project is definitely melodic electronic club music. But we are both trying to keep moving further and there is so much more to develop in the electronic music scene. So I think when two people have their own taste of music it’s really hard to go always the same way as the point will come someday where it’s drifting apart.

Another problem with a constant collaboration is that it’s difficult to get bookings as the club has to book always two people, but at the end they have just one artist they can write on the flyer. And even if you take less money there is always the problem that the club has to pay hotel and travel costs for two people. In our case no one knew our complete names in the beginning and I think that’s the reason why it had been uninteresting for the clubs to book just one of us. So I have to say that also from the business side a constant collaboration makes no sense for me these days. But we’re both really happy with our current situation. Daniel has just released some tracks on Sleazy Beats and his own DiKSO label he’s running together with our common friend Andi de Luxe and I’m also really busy running the Soulfooled label together with Alex Niggemann & Superlounge and pushing my own career as a dj and producer.

Disco has always been a influence on your sound as a dj and it feels like its creeping in more and more to your production side. I've heard you joined the world of edits and give them away online. What's the story behind that?

When I started to play in clubs as a DJ ten years ago I already played a lot of disco influenced music without knowing that nearly all tracks are based on a 70’s disco sample. So from the beginning Disco has always had a big influence on my music. But there’s always a point that a particular music style is getting boring for me.

As a producer and DJ I’m always trying to keep moving and looking for some new inspiration, so the music I like has always been changed over the last years. That’s why I’ve forgotten a little bit about disco. But than I discovered the dj-mixes of ‘The Revenge’ and his slowmo disco edits on his Instruments of Rapture label in 2009. From this point Disco sounded really fresh for me again. Ten years ago I’ve played disco influenced music with a tempo of 130 bpm and now I found all these much more minimalistic stripped down disco edits with a tempo between 100 and 110 bpm. Suddenly there has been a completely new scene with artists and labels I’ve never heard before. Such a situation is like a paradise for me because to discover new music is what I really like. So I’ve had all these slowmo disco tracks on my laptop but had no idea where to play them. And than I was about to play a warm-up set at Watergate in January 2010 and I decided to play this slowmo disco stuff for the first time in a club. During the set I’ve always waited for the moment that people will come and ask for something different. But quite the contrary happened. The people came in and immediately started to dance to 108 bpm. This night has been like an enlightenment for me and I’ve decided still to keep myself busy with this kind of music. Together with my friends Andi de Luxe and Daniel Solar we’ve decided to set up our own blog to have the chance to release our own disco mixes and edits there. This is how the disko blog (www.dikso.com) has been born. Check it our for some free downloadable mixes and disco edits. A few months ago Daniel and Andi have also decided to expand the whole thing and to set up a vinyl only label as well. So in the meantime Dikso also has become a very popular and high rated label with three releases so far and support from the biggest names of the scene.

But to be honest I have to say that this whole disco edit thing is getting a little bit boring for me. You can find so much edits at the moment which are even available for free on different blogs and pages like Soundcloud for example. But I’m missing some new developments within the scene. At the end the concept of the tracks are always the same with just different disco samples. I’ll always love disco but for now I have the feeling that it’s time again for me to move further and to look for something new as it seems that nothing new will come out from this scene.

What can we expect from Marc Poppcke in 2011?

2011 will be definitely a year full of changes for me. But to be honest I don’t want to speak to much about it right now because I know myself, I’ve always some things in mind and at the end everything is becoming different. What I can say is that together with Alex Niggemann we are just working on a remix for Silicone Soul’s hit Snakecharmer which will be part of the 20 Years Of Soma compilation coming up this year. For me it's a great honor to be part of it, since Soma has had such an important influence on the electronic music scene in the last 20 years. Than I’ll finish my studies at the University of the Arts and of course.I’ll keep on working on my career as a producer and dj as well as pushing our Soulfooled label furthermore. And of course I’m really looking forward to play again a lot of dj-gigs in many different countrys. First gigs are already confirmed for England, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, Romania and Brazil which will be my first gig outside of Europe. So we’ll definitely see us on the dancefloor again this year.

Artist of the Week: Marc Poppcke will air Tuesday Janurary 4th at 18:00, with repeats Wednesday at 12:00, and Saturday at 10:00.