Magda
M-INUS l Berlin
MORE INFO:
http://www.m-inus.com
http://www.facebook.com/unmagda
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With the release of her solo STOP EP on Minus, Magda can finally afford to take stock of a whirlwind few years that have seen the insatiable demand for her very special blend of house and techno carry her the length and breadth of the globe.
November 2005 and Magda’s set is reaching its climax at London’s Fabric. One moment she’s pounding the crowd with her very own 48 Hour Crack In Your Bass, the next the hairs on the back of 500 necks simultaneously stand to attention as the moody chords from Strafe’s all time classic Set It Off produce a collective gasp of appreciation from the dancefloor. She’s in the zone, unphased by the raucous response she’s generating. Virtually hidden by the racks of fx units and monitors surrounding her, she remains a picture of calmness, dictating the play with a cool hand.
It’s easy to see why she’s one of the most exciting prospects to breakthrough in recent years.
Magda makes things happen. Always has done, always will do.
Currently residing in Berlin, a relative stone’s throw from her home town of Zywiec in Poland considering the nomadic existence of her childhood, she seems to have finally found a city that mirrors her own attitude to life – no restrictions and certainly no compromise. It’s a philosophy that also flows through Magda’s music particularly during her after hour sets. The ability to guide her audience through the dark recesses of contemporary minimalism before delivering them back safely into the light means her name is never far from the lips of discerning clubbers and fellow DJs alike.
Her family left Zywiec for Texas in 1984 when she was nine before finally settling in Detroit in 1986. All this travelling around from one starkly contrasting environment to another, taught her to deal with new challenges and to adapt to new situations pretty quickly, lessons that have subsequently helped her deal with the often hectic life of a touring DJ. Always the outsider, the concept of ‘home’ was never as straightforward as it is for some. Sometimes though, home isn’t a physical location, it’s a state of mind and when she first turned up at a warehouse party a couple of blocks from where she’d grown up in the tough district of Hamtramck, she knew she’d found it. This initial foray into the Detroit underground culminated in the mind-blowing experience that was Spastik – Richie Hawtin’s first Plastikman PA. She was hooked.
Within a few months, armed with a cheap pair of belt drive turntables and an unquenchable thirst for vinyl, she’d moved from one side of the shop counter to the other at the influential Record Time store and had also persuaded the bar where she worked to put on a monthly techno night with Claude Young and Daniel Bell. Her enthusiasm was totally infectious and they soon asked her to warm up for them. In conversation it’s clear to see how much the lack of attitude and unconditional support from Bell in particular has shaped Magda’s own way of doing things.
Then, inspired by her mother’s ‘dark and surreal’ art she decided to study Graphic Design in New York state but soon realised music was the most natural medium for her self expression. Nevertheless, this abstract influence can still be found in her music production, juxtaposing as she does warm, thick swathes of sound with jagged little hi hat patterns, sometimes lazy, sometimes clinical but always purposeful and expressive.
