Into The Void represents a true cross section of musical lexicons in Marks’ sonic universe, bringing cinematic funk and R&B with orchestral vibes mixed in a jazz blender. The journey of Into The Void started unintentionally in 2017. Marks had recently moved to the US from Australia. He was in his sub-let apartment in Brooklyn messing around with some chords on his keyboard. He used a choir patch on his Nord, and improvised what became the opening chords of this song. At the time though, Marks had no vision for what to do with this idea, so he recorded as an iPhone voice memo. It wasn’t until 2021 that, while on vacation, Marks started listening back through a bunch older voice memos he had marked with an ‘*’, a symbol that he often writes on memos that he thinks have potential. By the time he got home, he started arranging the chords as five part vocal harmonies, which would later be recorded by New York based Latvian Jazz singing sensation Arta Jēkabsone. The piece then took on a life of its own, with Marks following his intuition in layering different ideas, one at a time. The structure of the track became through-composed, traversing different moods and vibes, with a cinematic interlude, a funk-infused horn section and neo-soul back beat outro that features Marks with a piano solo. In keeping with his previous releases, Into The Void is yet another example of Marks connecting disparate paradigms of his artistry: that of the concert music/film scoring world, and the underground scenes in which jazz, hip-hop, neo-soul and electronica blend together.

Marks composed all elements of the track, performed, recorded and produced all the keyboard and synthesizer elements. The track features vocalist Arta Jēkabsone, Doron Lev on drums/beat programming, horns from Andrew Gould (Ron Carter Big Band, Village Vanguard Orchestra, 8-bit big band), Sam Dillon (Mingus Big Band) and Dave Levy (LCD Sound System, Ray Angry, Norah Jones), as well as the incredible Sarpay Ozçagatay on flute.

On creating Into The Void, Nick says: “Into The Void morphs between my worlds in cinematic jazztronica with R&B and Neo-Soul influences. The track has a futuristic sound to it, kind of reminding me of traveling through time and space at hyper speed, while also nodding to elements of ‘Thriller’ with the choice of synth sounds combined with horns. The structure of this piece is a little different: it does not repeat any particular theme, but is a through-composed journey through several moods and vibe shifts in a cohesive sonic narrative. Having established these different worlds in my sonic universe through EPs Cinematic Chromatics Vols. I + II, this track meets somewhere in the middle”.