meets Magnetrixx

by Ari D (Goahead, Cleveland)

questions/comments to arid@djcentral.com

MAGNETRIXX is made up of Stefan Lewin and Heike Fahrmeyer hailing from Cologne, Germany. Their music is futuristic, tribal, mysterious, yet with a very positive vibe – but most of all, it is deeply hypnotic! With the release of the album “Phase Shift” on Tatsu last year, other releases on Medium, Leviathan and other labels, as well as on scores of compilations, they have joined the ranks of some of the most sought-after German progressive psytrance producers and live acts on the international circuit today. They took the tribes on a mind-warping journey through the forests at Four Quarters in Artemis, P.A at last summer's Gaian Mind open air festival. Now, they return to the states to play New York and Cleveland the last weekend in April. They will be playing a lot of unreleased material that will form their upcoming new album, due out at the end of the year. Some insights then, from the pair that captured the imagination of the East Coast tribes last summer and is sure to recapture it again this spring…

Where are you both, and what is going on there these days?

We are living in Bornheim, a small town nearby Cologne, Germany.

A big scene is here around our location (in a wide range), that means, we have lots of labels, artists, parties here, so there is a lot of activity around music, especially electronic music styles.

Where have you been playing in the past couple of month? Any stories from especially great events or locations?

We played in Budapest/Hungary short time ago, and it was great, the people on this party and the "vibe" was very nice.

So you're coming to America again soon. What are your impressions from last year's Gaian Mind open air festival in Pennsylvania? The US trance movement must seem very 'underground' coming from Europe...

It was very underground for us, indeed. But not in the meaning, that it was "underdeveloped", instead, we had the feeling that it was very close to the "roots" of all this, which gave us very spiritual impressions. It was like everything has one good vibe. This is a sharp contrast to the usual parties here. So maybe the question is whether development like it happened with the western-European-party-scene, especially the German party-scene is good for keeping and taking care of this spiritual vibe only… We don’t mean some esoteric thing with it, I just mean the awareness of what it means to have a good party together, and that its not just stupid unconscious consumption.

For example, here (Germany), you see lots of parties, which seem just commercial. We think, it depends on both, the people who visits a party (I’m talking about their awareness) and the organizers of the party. We think the intention should be to have a "place of freedom", which not only means, that You just can consume all kinds of fun there. A party is no Disneyland. It is a place where people come together (should be at least) and have a nice time but having in mind the things, which have to come together to provide such an event. We hope, our description is clear. :c) So, if we take the Gaian Mind Festival for example, there, we always felt this "being together" and "awareness" vibe. One very important point is the awareness of the surrounding nature. We think, it is hard to find it in that way and consequence, as we found it at Gaian Mind Festival. Everybody was looking to keep the place tidy. It was really nice to see, and we saw a big difference to the party people here (the most of them). So, underground can be better sometimes than a commercial "fun-consumption-event" :c)

To those who have not yet heard your music (or even trance in general) at all, how do you usually describe your sound?

Perhaps its an good way to describe it as riding in a train, hearing the rhythmical noises caused by the wheels on the rails, looking out of the window and watching the beautiful unseen landscapes of a weird nature which changes all the time, sometimes repeating just a bit different, (sometimes I have a feeling like that) or zooming into a fractal. One can always observe similar structures, but they are not the same, and interesting things are falling in the eye. We also would describe it as deeply hypnotic. I hope this is getting the point across. :c) (its hard to describe our own creations)

If you can, describe for us your creative approach in the studio. What gets your "creative juices" flowing?

Ok, I (Stefan) will speak for myself here. There are many things which inspire me. Mostly the things have nothing to do with music :c) So, its synthetic :c) For example wonderful inspiring sources are all kinds of sciences, especially cosmology, the structures in the universe, the macroscopic and microscopic ones, quantum physics, and I’m also very interested in the physics of sound: neurology, psychoacoustics, ( and sometimes I try to use some phenomena in our tracks which are not used so often in music ). I try to go more and more into the secrets of "sound". It is highly interesting and sometimes very inspiring. Also (keeping in mind that "All is one" and "One is all") I’m getting inspired a lot by the beauty of the nature.

All the things together are the source for my inspiration. It is not separate in my mind. Everything can be discovered everywhere. (Isotrophy) ( I hope it doesn’t sound esoterical, its not intended, its just that nature is like that )

I hope the description above will not cause misunderstandings, I’m just a very "open-eyed"-freak for such things, and its the main source of my inspiration, what can I say... :c) But of course, I’m also inspired from other kind of music, as jazz, classical music and of course psytrance itself.

How did you first hook up with the Tatsu label? Anything exciting going on there?

It’s hard to explain, I just met Laureth, he was the A&R from Tatsu before and he liked one of my first released tracks, and asked me to do an album on Tatsu. and I said yes. :c) So, after some years, now, the situation looks different there, and Laureth isn’t the A&R of Tatsu anymore. Now D-Nox is A&R there and I feel that our musical styles (mine and the style of Tatsu) are very different in this moment. I always try to do different things, maybe I won’t reach this goal, but at least I try. And at the moment, I feel (we feel) differently, musically speaking. So, I’m not so much in touch with Tatsu these days. So lets see what the future will bring. :c)

Do you play a lot of unreleased material during your live sets?

Depending on when we had the last releases more or less. So, at the moment, yes, we play many unreleased tracks.

Can you name any all-time classics that could define your musical influences?

To mention just a few: Johann Sebastion Bach, Modest Mussorgsky, Eroll Garner, Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd, Software (an German electronic group in the 80’s), Isao Tomita, Depeche Mode, Prodigy..........

Tell us about Morganixx, your side project. Do you explore a different sound or idea there?

At first, we founded Morganixx because we tried to make more melody-influenced tracks, where many ideas came from Heike (Morgana, therefore the name Morganixx) But later, all got more and more mixed up, so we can’t really say, what the difference now is, because Heike is involved in the Magnetrixx tracks as well, so some Magnetrixx tracks are also melodic. (till now, at least a little bit :c) )

Is there life after the "Phase Shift" album? When can we expect more Magnetrixx releases?

I hope we don’t have to wait so much longer until the next album will be released, maybe at the end of this or the beginning of the next year. We are working on it already. At least there will released an 12" vinyl in April on AP-Records, containing 2 new tracks.

On the personal side, are you two related in any way? Just curious… :-]

Stefan: Yes :c) Heike and me are a couple and we do most things together (even playing live heheh) and Heike is managing most things for me too, which helps me a lot to develop myself and I’m very grateful for it. :c))

Thank you both and we look forward to your visit!

You are welcome :c)

Heike & Stefan.

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