Producer, engineer, mixer, re-mixer, recording artist, performer and live show designer. Mark has acquired a diverse and unique skill set with his vast and varied experiences over the years.
Starting out as a teen in mid-west cover bands in the late 70’s, Mark made the move to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980 plugging into the punk and post punk club scene landing in the popular dark disco band Until December by 1986. Then came Consolidated in 1988 and Mark’s first foray into the studio as the band’s recording engineer and mixer. Consolidated’s politically charged, industrial/hiphop sound gave them notable success with the 90’s breakbeat scene and 5 increasingly successful indie albums on the Canadian imprint Nettwerk. Mark, at this time, was honing his skills both in the studio and on stage and became a first call re-mixer in the 90’s club scene, also producing and co-writing Michael Franti’s project The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy.
Upon the split of Consolidated in 1997, Mark joined his long time collaborator Jack Dangers in Meat Beat Manifesto, contributing to several of the band’s albums and became a mainstay in MBM’s touring lineup.
During this period Mark Pistel also started his own studio Room 5 Recording and began producing, recording and mixing many local, national and international acts (Michael Franti, Grace Jones, Chuck Prophet, Rykarda Parasol, Therapy?, Machines of Loving Grace, The Beloved, Los Mocosos, Titan, Grotus, Plastilina Mosh and many more).
In 2008 after a chance meeting Andrew Butler, Mark was asked to join DFA’s neo-disco/house music sensation Hercules & Love Affair, which culminated in Mark co-producing much of the band’s 2nd studio album [m=305368], designing the band’s live electronic show and performing with the band on worldwide tours from 2009 to 2015.
Since then Mark has continued recording, mixing and mastering many Bay Area local and international artists. In 2019 and forward Mark will be continuing to expand his roster and is slated for production on several electronic albums and other music projects.