In his Glasgow home studio, electronic producer Callan Marchetti, better known as Faodail, is reflecting on the relationship between music and place. His gaze drifts as he describes the northern Scottish landscapes that shape his sound: “It’s quite sparse. It is very textured in the way it looks,” he says, searching for words to capture something ineffable. “There is a certain brutal beauty to it… it can make you feel very small in a good way.”
This sentiment – finding beauty in sparseness – runs through Faodail’s work. His last single ‘Úr‘ illustrates this perfectly, with evocative synth melodies carving paths through atmospheric layers, its rhythms as steady and hypnotic as waves against northern shores. The track also highlighted a producer increasingly confident in his craft, while maintaining that essential connection to landscape that makes his work so distinctive.
The journey to this point hasn’t been linear. Like many electronic producers, Marchetti started as a drummer, but his relationship with rhythm has evolved in unexpected ways. “Weirdly, I find programmed drums one of the most difficult parts of writing music,” he admits. “When you’re playing a drum kit, you’re not thinking about… making all these sort of conscious micro decisions of selecting the hi-hat sound or pushing things on the grid.”
This attention to detail has led him away from relying on chance. “I used to rely on that more than I do now,” he reflects on happy accidents in his creative process. “Now I try to be a lot more deliberate in terms of the choices and writing a song… finding a balance between stumbling across something but also being kind of intentional.”
This intentionality has served him well in his scoring work for media projects. His recent work on the short film ‘Buried’ pushed him into unexpected territory, working with brass and woodwind in unconventional ways. “We ended up coming up with something that I wouldn’t have really been able to imagine at the start,” he says, noting how this has changed his approach to taking on projects. “It’s also kind of taught me not to say no to things.” This experimental mindset extends to his podcast scoring, where he finds the established parameters oddly freeing. “When you are composing for media, you then have a box to work in… which can be quite daunting. So in a lot of ways it is actually easier to write for media because you’ve got those parameters.”
The growth in his musical approach mirrors the evolution in his production setup. While physical instruments still have their place – an out-of-tune piano sits in his studio – Marchetti has found himself gravitating toward computer-based production. “The most important thing to me is just to get things down fast,” he explains. Yet he’s conscious of not losing the joy that drew him to music initially: “It’s easy to forget that the reason I started was because it was fun.”
This balance between efficiency and enjoyment, between technical precision and emotional depth, characterises Faodail’s work. His success has come through digital platforms rather than traditional local scene-building, yet his sound remains deeply rooted in place. “When you get more granular about it and specifically the type of music I do, there’s maybe like one other artist I can think of who’s from Glasgow and is on kind of similar labels to me,” he reflects.
Looking ahead, Marchetti is focused on new collaborations, including an EP featuring an artist whose band he grew up listening to – a full-circle moment that seems to validate his path. Yet his approach remains grounded in that same appreciation for space and texture that drew him to electronic music initially. Like the northern landscapes that inspire him, his work finds its power not in overwhelming the listener, but in creating room for contemplation.
In a genre often defined by its technical aspects, Faodail’s music reminds us that sometimes the most affecting moments come not from what’s added, but from what’s left out – the pause between beats, the silence that gives sound its meaning. It’s in these spaces that he finds his own brutal beauty, crafting music that feels both intimately personal and expansively universal.
Halina Rifai
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