Magnetude is a a brand new trans-european project brought to you by Rustam aka Rusty K & James Overtech aka Jae Overtech that aims to bring innovative, high octane, apocalyptic anthems aimed with sole intention of destroying dance-floors around the world.
Following their eruption into the scene on the legendary Lifted label platform with the ‘Hyperdrive’ EP, the Magnetude name has been perpetually on peoples’ lips as a result of their exceptional sound and next-level musical ideas.
The electrifying duo is back with ‘Steamfunk’ EP on premiere neurofunk label Eatbrain Records. ‘Steamfunk’ is a 4 track EP is packed with next-generation sonic weaponry that fans have come to expect from the Eatbrain imprint, and that Magnetude is rapidly developing a name for.
We sat down with the guys to know more about their thoughts on the EP, their inspirations and more.
Sagar – You guys have smashed it with this EP. Your thoughts on the final results of the entire project?
Rustam – Thanks so much! Well we approached this EP with wanting to take the Eatbrain sound and give our own twist to it. We are quite known for our musicality so we wanted to build on this alongside what Eatbrain are renowned for, whilst tapping into our audience and theirs. The Eatbrain sound is aimed solely for the dancefloor and I think we definitely made our mark on this, but we really think the final result and feedback from fans of both us and Eatbrain, as well as the artist support has surpassed our expectations.
James – I completely agree with Rustam, and to actually work with the whole PR Team Dori and Kata, you have 2 ladies who work so hard, are extremely reliable, fun, and motivated to really maximise the release promotion as much as possible to ensure that it reaches as far as possible. it was an extremely fun experience.
Sagar – How did the idea of Magnetude come about?
Rustam – I was working with Close 2 Death Recordings with my Rusty K project when we first met. He was helping me out with a lot of paperwork giving a lot of constructive advice and direction of my compositions which I feel helped me a lot with progressing with my sound. Then I asked him to manage me and he accepted the offer. But Jae was not only a musical business solicitor with a strong business model, he is also a good musician too so after 6 years of hard work we decided to write some tracks together and see where it would take us.
James – We were sat thinking about labels to approach with our ideas and who would welcome this particular style, so we approached Lifted Music with our first fully written track “Broken” and Chris Renegade has always been a massive admirer of Rustams productions, so he was instantly all ears. He fell in love with the track and asked “Do you have more?”, so we fired him over a package that consisted of numerous ideas in which then became the final product of our debut release “Hyperdrive” and he immediately offered us an agreement to work with Lifted Music.
Rustam – When we delivered the tracks, Chris then said to us “The music is great, but what name will you release under? You need a new name”. It took months of back and forth ideas until we had a name we were all happy with for the project.
James – Oh the birth of finding a name that no one had was a nightmare, and we have to thank Chris for all of the help, and support as without him, this project would not be what it is today.
Sagar – Where do you go for for inspiration when you approach the writing process?
Rustam – We actually search for inspiration away from Drum & Bass and only really listen to Drum & Bass when preparing for gigs. It is our cardinal rule that we find helps us a lot with trying to bring as original sound as possible with our compositions.
James – Yeah, it is very easy to listen to a track and then accidently take inspiration from that particular track and implement it into something you are working on. You can hear a lot of influence in other people’s works that is taken from other producers, and we really do not want that to happen to our music.
Rustam – I find most of my inspiration by listening to hip-hop, classical and neoclassical music, trip-hop, synth-pop and various other subgenres of rock music.
James – For me, I listen to a lot of trip-hop, classical, movie scores, indie and ambient music.
Sagar – You guys have really exemplified the Eatbrain sound with the ‘Steamfunk’ EP. Was it a conscious decision to choose Eatbrain?
Rustam – Totally. We have been strong supporters and fans of all of the artists on Eatbrain as well as their vision and brand. We wanted to step out of our more musical sound and write something that was more dance-floor and mechanically sounding, and infuse our own take on the Eatbrain sound.
James – We are very close with Jade too, and he was always hunting around asking about an EP from us, and as Rustam said, we are big followers and supporters of the label and the artists on the roster and the whole family vibe the label possesses was definitely another key factor to us wanting to write a release for the label.
Sagar – There are three fantastic collaborations on the EP. How did you decide which artists to work with? What were you looking for?
Rustam – “Press Play” we wanted to make a party track, a track that was both fun, energetic but also catchy. Julia Marks is a machine and can do pretty much almost anything when it comes to vocals. She also took part in the infamous Russian Hip Hop battle “InDaBattle” during 2010, becoming the first female to reach the competition’s finale.
James – We approached her and told her the concept of “Press Play”, and told her “You have free and full reign to unleash your skills with no limitations”. I have been showing her a lot of UK Grime recently, and she took this onboard and came back to us with the vocals for “Press Play” and we were both like “WOW!”
Rustam – “The Call” was the most tricky track of the EP, and we wrote it with intention of using a male vocalist from the start. I have known T3arz for some time, and he has this US Hip Hop style voice that we thought would fit perfectly, so I approached him and showed him the concept and he came back with the perfect hooks that we think really brings this track to life.
James – We are very against the “Copy/Paste 2nd drop” method, so we wanted to totally switch both “The Call” & “Press Play” up so to make the DJ and listener want to play both tracks for longer, and with T3arz awesome voice, we wanted to go more darker and harder on the 2nd drop and we feel that both tracks came out extremely well.
Rustam – With “Hunger”, we had pretty much the same vision and request to Julia – “You have free and full reign to unleash your skills with no limitations”. The vocals for this track were actually a freestyle she did while jamming over the track.
Sagar – Another EP specific question. ‘Hunger’, which is our favourite track from the EP seems to have an immaculate breakbeat influence. How did your individual styles collide while working on ‘Hunger’
Rustam – Believe it or not, “Hunger” started off as a drum & bass track, but then we got stuck on the idea and didnt really know where to go with it, so James came with the idea “Slow it down to 110BPM and lets see how it sounds” and boom! The concept began.
James – We are really into The Prodigy so we wanted to kind of infuse those influences into the track as well as follow the Eatbrain aesthetic.
Sagar – We are really digging the artwork behind the EP. It really epitomizes the sounds delivered with ‘Steamfunk’..
Rustam – Thanks so much. The artwork is incredible. Usually naming a release is quite a tough decision, but the name of the EP actually came together in the space of 5 minutes after a discussion with Jade about the artwork and what artwork we would like.
James – Yeah, we tend to make up joke-tails with words, as we are massively into “Steampunk” and from saying “We need the release to have a “Steampunk” influence, but be kind of funky too”, then we wrote “Steamfunk” and both sat back and shared a Eureka moment between us about the “Steamfunk” name and then the title was born.
Rustam – We wanted to artwork to portray our vision of the release when we close our eyes, what we would like to imagine when listening to the release, something mechanical, a little chaotic (in a good sense), and really brought out the rugged aesthetic of the EP.
James – Gabor, Trinyó Art and Art Gutierrez did a fantastic job as always, with incorporating our vision into the final design.
Sagar – Can we expect Magnetude to dig deeper and explore more styles?
James – Of course, like we said previously, we find most of our inspiration away from Drum & Bass, and dont really want to be pigeonholed as a “DnB Act”, thought Drum & Bass is our main foundation.
Rustam – We have a lot of mixed tempo and mixed genre stuff, and along with Julia Marks, we love to explore all kinds of music. It can get very painful always writing the same style and tempo all the time, so stepping out of what some would say as being our “comfort zone”, can be very helpful with searching for inspiration too. But to answer that questions with a more straight forward answer, Yes we will, 100%.
Sagar – What’s next for Magnetude?
Rustam – We just signed to Gram Agency for worldwide bookings, and actually have a lot of things in the works right now too, including more tracks with Julia Marks, a handful of collaborations with some of our favourite artists, and some massive label interest, but we don’t really want to say too much right now.
James – It is really incredible at how fast the project is moving and the support and interest shown to us by listeners, artists and labels, but I guess in the coming months and start of the new year all will be revealed and we are so excited about what lays ahead and is in store for 2018.
Grab your copy here: http://eatbrain.net/eatbrain-046
You are doing great, guys! Hope I see you on some Slovak or Czceh partys or festivals. Love your style!