Sound Decisions: Meet the retired bankruptcy judge who rules Seattle's ambient electronic music scene
Since retiring as a bankruptcy judge, Marc Barreca has released two albums. (Photo courtesy of Marc Barreca)
When federal bankruptcy judge Marc Barreca retired in 2024, he ended both his legal career and his double life. For years, Barreca had been dividing his time, spending weekdays presiding over a courtroom and evenings and weekends in his studio, composing and recording ambient electronic music.
Ambient electronic is niche genre that relies on instrumental textures and tones rather than the structure of rhythm and harmony—more like an aural atmosphere than a sing-along bop. Seattle-based Barreca has been involved in the ambient electronic scene since the 1970s—he is considered a pioneer of the genre in the Pacific Northwest—but he put his artistic aspirations on hold to become a bankruptcy lawyer, a BigLaw partner, a husband and a father.
In 2010, he began serving as a U.S. bankruptcy court judge for the Western District of Washington, rising in 2019 to become its chief judge. He was able to return to music—including performing—on a limited basis while on the bench. But since retiring in July, he’s significantly amplified his output, releasing two albums, a solo effort called A Discourse of Mist, and Arrhythmian, a collaboration with musician K. Leimer.
It’s been perfect timing—a new generation has been discovering Barreca’s distinctive sound thanks to the re-release of several of his early recordings, including early albums reissued on the most hipster-approved musical format of all—vinyl. His music is also reaching a wider audience via licensing. He says that recently his works were used in a major television commercial and also in a runway show for a luxury fashion brand.
You’ve been making music since the 1970s. What’s it like to jump back into the game with a new fan base?
It’s very odd to me, but it’s also kind of cool that people are listening to my stuff from the ’80s.
I know you’re from Seattle, where the music scene was legendary long before grunge emerged. How did you get into music?
I actually got into music because I played the accordion as a little kid.
Marc Barreca, left, still sometimes plays with James Husted, center, as Young Scientist. In 1978, Roland Barker, right, was also in the group. (Photo courtesy of Marc Barreca)
I did not see that coming!
Well, you know, it was the late ’50s-early ’60s, and the accordion was still kind of in, especially with Italian-American families. I have six siblings, and three or four of us played the accordion. I played through grade school and would play in little competitions and also in accordion bands—if you can picture 30 kids all playing accordion! I started playing rock keyboards in high school, and in college, I was in some local rock bands; just cover bands playing in taverns and stuff.
How did you get into electronic music?
In 1975 or ‘76, I got my first synthesizer—a white-face ARP Odyssey. I was making little recordings with a tape deck and a synthesizer, and by the late ’70s was playing in what was really a very pioneering electronic music group in Seattle called Young Scientist. It still exists—I still play with them every once in a while.
How would you describe your music?
People generally would call it ambient or dark ambient or experimental. Some people also call it new classical, which is really awesome because I’m not a classical musician at all. I can read music, but I don’t compose with a paper and pen. I play and record synthesizers and digital samplers direct to a computer and arrange the pieces through extensive editing.
My process is in some ways similar to musique concrète, an early electronic music composition process. It goes back to the time before synthesizers, when people used sound recordings to make music. Tape recorders became accessible to people in the 1950s, so a lot of early electronic music, which I like to listen to, is from the 1950s, and it was just people literally combining different sounds and recording them on tape because that’s what they had to work with back then. You didn’t need to have a big orchestral score that said, “OK, oboes are playing here, flutes are playing here”—you could record right onto the tape.
It was very tedious because they didn’t have digital recording like we have now—it was very laborious to splice together little bits of tape and then make this big collage out of it.
How do you find inspiration for your music?
In different ways. It can depend on whether I am making music with other musicians or if I’m just playing by myself, but normally I start by making a whole bunch of sounds in the same key. These are sounds that work well together or that I think would work well together, but I make them separately, often by playing them on a keyboard. I make a loop that’s maybe 25 seconds long, and then I take that loop of music and manipulate the sound with different other devices and then add different layers of stuff.
So usually, pieces evolve from getting interested in some sound I’m making and wanting to work around that. Or I’ll have an idea of, “Hey, this sound would sound good with these other kinds of sounds.” Or I might get fascinated by a piece of gear and see what kind of cool sounds I can make with that piece of gear, and then I’ll add on from there. So it’s a mishmash of ways of making the sounds and then organizing the sounds in the pieces.
How do you know when you’re done with a piece?
Good question. That’s always the problem for people. It’s like novelists—they do 17,000 drafts, and they’re never done with their Great American Novel. You can add too many layers of stuff, and then it’s just a mess. I am done when it sounds nice.
Now that you’re fully retired and focused on music, have you set any goals?
I want to continue to play local concerts. I’m certainly interested in doing soundtracks and licensing my music for soundtracks. But I do have one goal that I think is a little different: I want to make abstract videos for some of my music. With electronic music, you’re just watching some people play—you know, they’re twiddling knobs, and it’s kind of boring to watch. For years, I made videos that would be projected behind the stage while I was playing. I’ve done some of this, but I would like to make abstract videos with my music and get them on YouTube. I think that’s such an excellent combo.
A profile described you as an “elder statesman of Seattle’s electronic music history.” What do you think about that?
I like it when I hear people were inspired or influenced by my music. I’ve also heard from people that my stuff has inspired them to make music themselves, and that fills me with pride. But I might reject any notion that I’m the elder statesman. But I might be one of the eldest, literally. I just played a concert the other day with several well-known, long-standing Northwest electronic musicians, but the oldest of them was probably in her early 40s. I’m almost 70.
Well, you certainly don’t seem like it, and you certainly aren’t yielding to your age. It seems like you’re just getting started.
Well, 70 is the new 40.
• Listen to Marc Barreca’s music on Spotify.
Jenny B. Davis is a journalism professor at Southern Methodist University, a fashion stylist and former practicing attorney. Her most recent book is Style Wise, a guide for aspiring fashion stylists.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
