Presenting Magnus Interview

Brisbane

During school holidays, my family would go and work on my Grandfather’s farm in Nothern NSW. Having just bought a new laptop and not having any internet access in the area, GarageBand never stood a chance. I would catch my family while they were sitting around the TV and play them my demos and because they are incredibly polite, they said they were good!

I have just purchased some very sexy studio monitors and am setting up a small home studio to begin writing an EP for release in early 2021. I have also been really excited to find some other Australian artists to work with, either as a feature or to co-produce.

I started making connections through university – becoming friends with wonderfully talented singers, mixing engineers and learning the basics of production on Ableton during tutorials. Since then my tutors and my manager have helped expand my horizons and meet some fantastic artists from around Australia. This is super exciting and I am looking forward to working with as many people as I can!

I was really loving the amazing music coming out from Golden Vessel and wanted to create a similar sort of electronic pop track with some toplines that you could sing/rap along to at home! For the chorus, I wanted an off-kilter sort of Flume’esque synth sound and reworked the original synth line to create the organic sounding lead synth in the final version. The song is about two friends who become more than friends, leading to love, happiness but eventually ends in trouble.

The track was recorded over a few months at the end of 2019 and early 2020. Although Lucie lives in Brisbane, she was actually on a student exchange studying music in Los Angeles at the time and had to record her vocals in her bedroom. While we would normally record at my University’s recording studio, COVID-19 meant we needed to find an alternative. For Declan’s (Zeplyn) verse, we recorded in a closet at my house on a disgustingly hot day and although the conditions were dreadful, it resulted in a great performance!

I produced Shake You Off on Ableton and used a Launchkey Mini as my main MIDI controller for all the synths you hear in the track. All the drums are one-shots I have arranged to create the playful yet heavy beat.

So much fantastic music has come out recently. I’ve been listening to new tracks from Young Franco, Yb., Yuto and have had the Vallis Alps Remix of Matt Maeson’s – Hallucinogenics on repeat for the last week. 

I’m currently having fun completing my Honours thesis at the Queensland University of Technology for Industrial Design. I am looking into making entry lines for music festivals faster and more enjoyable! For work, I help design unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), drones, robots, and do some data labeling to help improve machine vision systems for autonomous navigation – all very interesting to work on!

I would be absolutely thrilled to work with Emerson Lief, Upsidedownhead, Luboku and Jadu Heart – all have amazing styles and I think working with them would result in some really unique and fun music!

I am hoping to keep experimenting with sounds and styles this year, releasing a few more singles in preparation for an EP in early 2021. I am also trying to collaborate with more local artists and keep working my way into the wider Australian music scene!

My favourite food is anything Mexican – burritos, nachos… the lot. My favourite place to hang out is in the Z9 music building at QUT. With so many amazing artists in the one space, it’s got a fantastic energy about it, not to mention the great equipment!