Jessie Marcella has never treated musical identity as a tidy proposition. On 11:11, the producer and composer moves through a landscape where hushed ambience, neo-classical tenderness and the kinetic pull of the dancefloor are allowed to coexist without explanation. The EP is built around a simple yet strangely magnetic premise: each composition appears in Day and Night form, inviting us to hear how a shift in light, context or temperature can alter the emotional charge of the same idea.
For Marcella, that duality is less a conceptual trick than a way of making sense of her own practice. She begins with atmosphere rather than tempo, allowing textures and melodies to find their emotional weight before rhythm enters the frame. The Night versions may carry a deeper, harder energy, but they still emerge from the same ambient core. It’s a process that mirrors the project’s fascination with 11:11 itself: a familiar arrangement of digits that can be read as a mundane moment on a clock, or as a cue to pause, align and look a little closer.
Quartz becomes another quietly potent symbol here: a material used to keep precise time, but also a crystal associated with manifestation. That tension runs throughout Marcella’s work, shaped by a lifelong pull between the emotional spaciousness of artists such as Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm, and the euphoric force of free-party culture. In this conversation, she reflects on refusing neat genre boxes, trusting instinct over tidiness and making room for music that can feel, in her words, both happy and sad at once.
Hey Jessie, it’s a pleasure to speak with you. As 11:11 has that duality between day and night, I’m curious: how different is your daytime self from your nighttime self?
Hey! Thanks for having me. I don’t think I become a different person when it gets dark, but I definitely think different parts of me become louder depending on the environment I’m in. I absolutely love my own company and need loads of time by myself to recharge, but I also love being surrounded by people, especially through music. I could spend days on my own writing and be completely content, then equally be in a club dancing with friends. I kind of need both.
This might sound ridiculous, but my first memory of 11:11 being an ‘important’ number (I later discovered it was an angel number) was Paris Hilton’s tweets (“11:11 make a wish! x”). So I wonder, how and when did you become aware of the power of those four repeating digits?
Haha, yes, I love that! Or there’s this meme that says, ‘You know you’re on the right path because you saw 11:11 on the microwave.’ It’s funny. I guess, on the surface, 11:11 is known as a lucky number, but there are a few meanings behind it with this project.
There was this period of time where I kept seeing it, like alllll the time. That’s when I delved a bit deeper into its meaning, which has many parallels to how I think in general and sort of reaffirmed what I already believe in. I’ve always had a pretty strong belief in the universe — in an energetic sense; an understanding that, you know, the more you hone in and focus on your dreams, dedicate the hours and really believe in what you’re doing, the universe will mirror that back to you. So every time I see this number (which has been a lot more recently), it’s a reminder of this.
Now, let’s get into the record. 11:11 is built around a number that can feel both spiritual and completely mundane: a moment on a clock, but also an invitation to pause. What drew you to that tension, and when did it become the organising principle for the EP?
As I was in the middle of writing the project, I knew I wanted 11:11 to be included in some way — firstly because the EP feels like stepping into alignment with my truest musical self. But at a later point, as the concept developed further, it made even more sense when I realised it could represent a literal time both in the day and at night. A lot of my projects unfold in this way; ideas all link up to form something I’d never have thought of just off the bat.
I was also reading quite a lot about time while I was making it, particularly ideas around time dilation and the fact that time isn’t really as linear as we experience it. We’ve become so used to measuring life through clocks that we forget it’s only one way of interpreting existence. 11:11 became this perfect symbol because, on one level, it’s just four digits on a clock, but for so many people it carries emotional or spiritual significance. That contradiction felt beautiful, but also, people can dig as deep as they choose to.
You describe alignment as both a state of being and a point in time. Was there a particular personal or creative moment when those two ideas felt especially connected for you?
Ever since I began producing, I’ve made music that spans the widest energy spectrum — from sparse ambience through to rolling breaks, etc. It was with this 11:11 project that I was finally able to fully align with what I’ve always been. I’ve honestly never even thought about genres and the idea of splitting up your musical output because one track is faster than another. So I guess the alignment for me came from not arriving somewhere new, but being able to stop dividing who I already was.
Quartz appears as a material that keeps time, while the music deals with much less measurable things — memory, emotion and perception. How did you translate that contradiction into sound?
I loved the symbolism of quartz because it’s something we use to keep incredibly precise time, but it’s also a crystal that is used to enhance manifestation, which links it back to the angel/time number. I often see evolving textures in my mind’s eye when I make music, like the visual world is making itself in real time as I write. This then becomes the blueprint for the project.
With Quartz (Day), I was seeing this angelic light and crystal textures. It’s always music first, then the visual world appears without thought, then a lottttt of thinking goes into refining the concept and understanding, even if only a little bit, what it is that wanted to be written. Musically I wanted that contradiction to exist as well. The structures are often quite considered, but inside them everything feels fluid and constantly evolving. It’s less about counting time and more about experiencing it.
Each composition exists in a Day and Night version. Did you begin with one core emotional idea and split it in two, or did the two versions develop as separate tracks that gradually revealed their relationship?
To be honest, it was different for each pair. I usually experiment when I start making new music, but this was a challenge because once I had either the Day or Night track down, reworking that idea to make something new wasn’t easy. I never start my music with drums — the emotional core always comes first. Even the Night versions began life as ambient sketches without drums. I ended up resampling bits into their partner tracks, but there’s a lot of new writing and production in each individual song. It’s less like a remix of one or the other, but really about focusing on bringing in a harder, deeper energy with the Night versions.
“The most important thing is to allow the music to be however it wants to be.”
The Day versions do not simply feel gentler, nor do the Night versions merely feel more club-oriented. What did ‘day’ and ‘night’ mean to you musically beyond tempo, energy or atmosphere?
Thanks, I think that probably sums up my sound in a way. My music straddles the neo-classical world as much as it does the higher-energy electronic world and, if I’m honest, it didn’t cross my mind to go fully ambient then club. The two versions explore how shifts in context change the way we experience the same thing. Like looking at the same landscape under a completely different light, your relationship with it changes. Or, you know how when you’ve been in a club all night and then the sun starts to come up? There’s such a strong shift in your relationship with wherever you are at that time.
Listening to the EP as paired tracks encourages comparison, but it also makes the listener aware of their own mood. Do you see the record as offering different ways into the same feeling, or different meanings altogether?
Oooh, that’s interesting about being aware of your own mood; I’d not thought about it like that! Hmm, honestly, I think that’s completely up to the listener. Personally, they make me feel different things, but they’re heavily connected to each other, like light and shadow, hot and cold. It’s that kind of pairing to me.
You have previously spoken about beginning tracks without tempo, allowing a feeling to emerge before organising it. Did that approach remain central to 11:11, especially when creating the more rhythmically driven Night versions?
Yeah, my projects start as a total mess, usually with about eight different song ideas or sections that could be worked together to make one track or developed separately into their own. The same goes for this EP, but one thing I have noticed is that if I start with drums, I start thinking in genres and even the end result almost immediately. But if I begin with atmosphere instead, I’m just following emotion, which is how I’ve always created best.
That’s been true across everything I’ve made, including the Night versions. Those tracks still started from ambient textures, melodies and emotional ideas before rhythm entered the picture. The rhythm was there to amplify the feeling, not create it. Once I’m happy with the many sections in Ableton, I’ll refine the structure and tidy the whole session up. I guess I prioritise getting ideas out as they come over tidiness.
Your music often sits between neo-classical composition and dance music, though you have described the combination as something that comes naturally rather than as a conscious fusion. Has working on 11:11 changed how you understand that space between the concert hall and the dancefloor?
I think just to dive into it further, really; it’s my favourite and most natural space. I think something special happens when these worlds collide and you have the emotion of neo-classical music blending with the energy of heavier electronic music. It may not be the quickest route to ‘success’ as it doesn’t fit in either box, but I’m not bothered about that. It’s what makes sense to me. In a way, making the Day/Night pairs has reaffirmed how connected and dependent on each other both sides are, and that my production is a massive melting pot of it all.
It’s definitely come naturally; the combination is from my history, really, both in terms of what I grew up listening to and, when I found out about music production, it was at this intersection of going to free parties and being immersed in that culture whilst discovering artists like Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm. But my ‘sound’ is very much the same as when I first started producing, only my technical skill has got a lot better. I struggle to think of any of my music as separate, or that it should come from a second alias or anything like that. This never made sense to me because it’s not that complicated, it comes from how I feel the world.
You have mentioned discovering Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm while immersed in free-party culture — two worlds that may appear opposed but clearly informed your sound. Looking back, what did each of those worlds teach you about what music can do?
I’ve always been a sensitive, emotional person, probably like many artists out there. But I think music from artists such as Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm, along with a lot of the other beautiful yet melancholy stuff I listened to growing up (Sigur Rós, Björk, etc.), was the gateway to being able to very quickly immerse myself within a feeling and lock in to that without distraction for as long as the song was playing. Eventually, that led to me being able to do the same whilst writing my own stuff. It’s also taught me that less can be so much more; allowing ‘space’ in music makes things even more beautiful.
With the free party scene, I was introduced to sooooo many different high-energy genres: jungle, dnb, hard tek — the list goes on. These influence my sound massively to this day, both in terms of individual elements like using a Reese bass, certain drum breaks or, more generally, the energy and atmosphere of some of this stuff. Still, to this day, for me, nothing beats a haunting vocal over rolling breaks! The euphoria and power in general I often feel through my music is definitely carried forward with me from that time. Also, the community is really strong, which I hadn’t experienced prior. So I’d go as far as to say my music is a direct fusion of these worlds.
In a previous project, Luminescence, environmental change and visual storytelling were central. 11:11 feels more inward-looking, even if it still engages with the natural world through quartz and energy. Did this EP mark a shift in what you wanted to investigate artistically?
Because the concept is always formed after the writing process has started, I feel like the concepts and themes sort of choose themselves. For me, the most important thing is to allow the music to be however it wants to be, then the music makes my mind’s eye come to life, and through that, the themes appear. So I’m not sure where I’m necessarily headed next; however, I’ve always worked in ways where there are mini links between projects. Each project adds another little world to this much larger web, which is ever evolving.
But I’ll always gain inspiration from and care massively for the environment. I mean, there’ll be nods to it in all of the music I create mainly because even this planet alone is absolutely mental! It blows my mind, really; it’s the most infinite source of inspiration out there. Project to project, the environment presents itself differently, perhaps not so literally, but it’ll always be there.
You once said that the music you love most can make you want to dance and cry at the same time. Is that still the feeling you are chasing — and what would you like a listener to carry with them after spending time with 11:11?
Yeah, the classic happy-sad thing! I love that; it’s confusing and overwhelming and is something you can only feel and not explain. I think that’s what I love about it: it’s intangible, awe-inspiring and freeing all at once.
Whether you choose to dive into all the spiritual meanings behind 11:11 or not is completely up to you. I just hope the music finds you at the right time. And from me to you: it comes with a big serving of good luck. <333