Marcos Baiano (@marcosbaiano_22) launches 2HOT2HANDLE with Back To The Future, a four-track EP landing October 16 with a remix from Terence :Terry:. The release marks the first statement from a new label, but it also marks Baiano’s return after nearly eight years away from the underground scene, following a period in Berlin where he ran B.SOUL Limited and worked inside house and tech-house circles at close range.
The record looks backward and forward at the same time. Baiano describes his personal language as “electro-black-soul,” and the EP carries that phrase into chunky house grooves, acid movement, analogue hardware, old-school references, and a modern club edge. The Moog Sub Phatty brings sharper grit, the Subsequent 37 brings rounder tones, and the whole package is built around the idea that club music can still have attitude, identity, and depth without turning into museum nostalgia.
That is the larger point of 2HOT2HANDLE.
Baiano is returning to a scene that moves faster than the one he left, and the interview below reads like an artist trying to locate what still deserves to be carried forward. He talks about underground culture, faith, peace, Black music, Beatport success, stepping away, and why older generations have a responsibility to pass on something authentic. Back To The Future becomes more than a label launch. It is a re-entry statement from someone who had to leave the chase before he could decide what kind of future he wanted to build.
Interview With Marcos Baiano
How do you define your role within the culture right now?
I’m coming back from an eight-year break, after living in Berlin for almost four years and being deeply immersed in the underground scene until 2017. In a way, I feel my role within music culture is still the same; what has really changed is me and the way I look at it today. Returning after so long, I found a completely different world from the one I had left behind, and it made me think deeply about the word “culture.”
Everything moves incredibly fast now, and sometimes I feel we are losing the context, curiosity, and depth that have always made underground music special. It’s not only about phones in front of the DJ booth or how music is consumed, but also about the responsibility of older generations to keep passing something authentic on.
That is part of why I created 2HOT2HANDLE: reconnecting with those roots without looking backward nostalgically, through music, lifestyle and clothing. I want it to be a small window inside a very fast world — a place to slow down, listen and experience things with a little more depth.
What has helped you prioritize long-term growth over short-term momentum?
I think I found my answer to this question about sixteen years ago, when I was releasing my first EPs. I was caught up in the excitement of those early releases and twice in a row my house and tech-house tracks reached the Beatport Top 3. I could have continued in that direction, but I realised that kind of success did not fully represent who I was or what I wanted from music.
I studied saxophone as a child and have always been deeply attracted to Black music, from Muddy Waters to Etta James, so for me there has always needed to be something real behind the sound. I believe we live many lives within one lifetime, and sometimes one part of us has to die for another to be born.
Over time, music became almost a form of medicine for me — a way to release what we often keep inside. I could never make music simply to chase a chart or short-term momentum; sometimes the real momentum happens completely alone in the studio, when something finally takes shape, and that feeling is worth more to me than any chart position.
Are there principles or daily practices that keep your work grounded over time?
I’m returning to the underground scene after almost eight years in which I barely opened music software or followed what was happening musically. During my years in Berlin, between producing, DJing and organising showcases for my old label, I became very absorbed by competition and the weight of outside judgement, which inevitably exists in this world too. Eventually I needed to step away from all of that to find myself again and understand what music really meant to me.
My amazing wife was also the person who encouraged me to reconnect with this part of my life, and a friend once told me, “You don’t choose music — music chooses you.”
Today I experience music much more spiritually; I have a deep faith in Jesus Christ, and many of the sounds, words, and references in my work are connected to a personal journey that has lasted my whole life. I finally feel free from judgement, trends and external pressure, and I live with much more peace and gratitude — thanks to God. That is where the motto comes from: GUIDED BY FREQUENCY — being guided even when the direction is not obvious or understandable to everyone. And maybe that’s exactly why, for some people, the concept itself can feel a little 2HOT2HANDLE.
How do you stay responsive to the present while building toward the future?
I think I have already answered part of this through the meaning of 2HOT2HANDLE and GUIDED BY FREQUENCY. Today I believe the future is not built by trying to predict it, but by staying present and true to yourself, so you can understand what is worth carrying forward and what it is time to let go.
Reaching that awareness was an important point for me because it allowed me to find balance again and stop turning everything into a constant chase. Of course, I have a very clear vision of what I want to build with 2H2H Studio, and for me it goes far beyond music alone. At the same time, I never want that vision of tomorrow to pull me away from what I am feeling and creating today.
My job is to live the present fully, stay open to what arrives and build the future step by step. For me, the foundation of everything is being present enough to recognise the direction when it appears — and having the faith to follow it.
What kind of impact do you hope to have within the communities you’re part of?
Without a doubt, my mission is to make people feel something of what I have lived — or, more accurately, to transmit through what I do the experience that has brought me to what I feel today: peace.
How exactly do I do that? Maybe I don’t completely know myself. When I enter my creative world, a thousand ideas appear, and there are so many things I want to say, show, or transform; that is probably one of the hardest parts of the process. What I do know is that I want to communicate something authentic, with real meaning behind it.
We live in an incredibly fast world, surrounded by constant input that, in my view, often pulls us further away from ourselves. From where I stand today, I hope what I create can help even a few people slow down, feel more, and live their own lives with greater depth. I would love for people to find their own momentum — the real, personal one — instead of constantly chasing the artificial momentum presented to us every day. If music, 2H2H, or anything else I create can transmit even a small part of that, then for me that would already be a huge impact.
Closing Thoughts
Marcos Baiano’s return is interesting because he is not treating absence like a comeback gimmick.
He is treating it like evidence. The eight years away gave him distance from the competition, chart-chasing, outside judgment, and cultural speed that had started to drain the meaning from the work. Back To The Future sounds like a title about time travel, but the real concern is simpler: what can an artist bring back after leaving long enough to see the scene differently?
That connects with my interview with Mystigrix on Flirt Records, community, and long-term house culture.
Mystigrix talked about labels, radio, digging, and mutual support as ways to keep underground music from becoming isolated and overly competitive. Baiano is circling a similar concern from another generation. 2HOT2HANDLE is not only a release channel. It is an attempt to make a small slower space inside a culture that often rewards speed before depth.
Baiano’s comments also sit beside ATLAC’s interview on visual pressure and keeping music first. ATLAC spoke about the risk of artists spending more energy on polish and marketability than on the records themselves. Baiano’s version of that concern is wider. He is worried about the pace of the whole culture: phones, consumption habits, trend pressure, and the loss of context. Both artists are asking for the same basic discipline, even from different corners of the scene. Do not let the packaging outrun the music.
The religious language in Baiano’s answers may not be typical for underground house press, but that is part of why the interview has weight. He is not simply saying he took a break and came back refreshed. He is saying the break changed his relationship to judgment, pressure, purpose, and peace. That gives 2HOT2HANDLE a more personal premise than the average new-label announcement. The imprint is being built by someone who had to rethink why he wanted to make music before deciding how to release it.
That makes Terence :Terry:’s role feel especially right for the first release. A mentor, mastering engineer, longtime collaborator, and remixer is not a random add-on to the package. His presence gives the label a connection point to Baiano’s earlier life in underground house while helping define how 2HOT2HANDLE will sound now.
The remix does what a good first remix should do: it expands the record without pulling it away from the world the label is trying to introduce.
The broader takeaway is that Baiano’s future-facing idea is not about chasing the newest sound. It is about deciding what still has enough soul, attitude, and identity to survive the speed around it. Back To The Future starts 2HOT2HANDLE with that tension intact: old-school references without costume, modern pressure without emptiness, and a sense that the label’s real subject is not time, but attention.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
