Young Marco is the DJ and producer Marco Sterk from Amsterdam. He spends more than a decade on the city’s underground dance music scene, where several residencies help him develop a reputation for eclectic, genre-crossing sets. His selections move between tropical rhythms, afro records, Middle Eastern disco, proto-house, techno and harder jack tracks, and he becomes known for playing unusual and overlooked music.

He is associated with crate digging, record collecting and party-starter DJ sets, and he plays regularly in Europe, North America and other regions. He is also closely linked to the Dutch label Rush Hour, which releases several of his early singles, and later begins releasing music on Lovefingers’ ESP Institute.

Releases and production

His first two EPs for ESP Institute establish the style that becomes his trademark and attract support from DJs and artists including Dixon and James Murphy. He also gains attention as a remixer, with notable reworks for Heatsick, Joakim, Francis Bebey and Soft Rocks. His remix of Tony G’s “Dreams” becomes especially sought after in 2013. A selection of these remixes is later collected on Sorry For The Late Reply, the first release on his Safe Trip imprint.

Albums and collaborations

In 2014 he releases his debut album Biology on ESP Institute. The same year he collaborates with Gigi Masin and Jonny Nash on Clouds, released under the name Gaussian Curve on Music From Memory. The album is written and produced in a weekend and is followed by a second Gaussian Curve album, The Distance.

Label work and later activity

His own label, Safe Trip, focuses on electronic music in different directions. He also contributes to Dekmantel’s crate-digging compilation series Selectors. Across his work as a DJ, producer and label owner, he is associated with humid, off-kilter sounds and with “strange music” and “unclassics” in club settings.