80s Synth-Pop Makes A Comeback In An Entire New Arrangement

"...There was a little episode in my past life when I was playing music. After 22 years of not striking a single piano key, one day I decided to come back to the life of music, but this time as a Music Producer and Composer. So here I am..."

Agnieszka Magistrelli – Music Producer/ Song Writer/ Composer Her first Single ‘Smalltown Boy (feat. OlexSandra)’ released early this year and available on all streaming platforms has been described as ‘New arrangement of earlier song from the 80's, taking you to the new world of electronic sound.’’ And there is no doubt this is the entire new arrangement of the 80s synths sound we were all listening to decades ago.

Agnieszka was born in Poland, but spent her adult life in the UK, England, where she lives with her family for 10+ years, working and creating music. In the early 90s she was educated in the Music School in Poland, playing piano, cello and growing up listening the iconic groups such as Depeche Mode, Erasure, Tears for Fears etc. New Wave artists together with the classical music background strongly influenced her musical taste and defined her style. She is passionate about music of all genres, but mainly focused on atmospheric dark synth-pop with blending elements of classical instruments.

‘’… My music has a strong influence of 80's metallic synths, but it’s rearranged into new contemporary sound.’’

Her debut Single ‘Smalltown Boy (feat. OlexSandra)’ broke TOP 10 on the ReverbNation Charts just a week after release (Mar 2019): number 4 Regional ‘The Greater London Charts’, number 6 National ‘UK Charts’ and number 55 Global ‘Worldwide Charts’ in the Electronica category. Soon after, the song caught the attention of the ReverbNation Senior Curators and is currently under their review. Month later, ‘Smalltown Boy’ has been on air in the public Polish radio Polskie Radio Program III (PR3) in the ‘Minimax’ show hosted by Piotr Kaczkowski - the legend of Polish music journalism and the Polish Radio Program 3.

‘’At that time, I wasn’t even aware, that one of the biggest Polish public radio stations presented my Single in their show. It was our audience and friends who informed us on social media, that we have just been on air in the ‘Minimax’ show in PR3. This was definitely a shock as it came out of nowhere, and it happened to me; an Indie Artist who is not signed to any label, didn’t send any demo, but who just simply had been chosen by one of the most sophisticated music journalists to his show and introduced to their audience as a ‘’New artist who changed this classic song into something absolutely beautiful and unique.’’

For Agnieszka the success of her first release came as a surprise, taking under consideration, that this was her first project as Music Producer and created out of the spontaneous idea of producing new version of one of her favour’s songs from the 80’s in a completely different arrangement. The song itself, absolute classic by Bronski Beat, together with the great melody line was sending a very important and liberal message to the homophobic Britain at that time -‘‘BE YOURSELF’’. By highlighting shared experiences of hundreds of thousands of gay people, it provoked a serious debate over these issues. Consequently, Agnieszka was feeling under the pressure to create the new arrangement which would reflect on the quality and importance of the original composition.

‘’ The idea was to slow down the song significantly to around 50 bpm and to provide ambience in a distinctive but yet explicit way. I have to admit, that I created the beat first and built the entire song around it. The beat is really the one which drives the whole song. I also knew, that I definitely would like to add some strings for the harmony, so when I found this beautiful cello sound by Tina Guo, I just thought…this is it! Most importantly, I wanted to avoid writing note to note to the original, but to make it my own and to bring it up to today’s sound. The beat, the classical instruments used, and the added Fx’s gave me the ambience I was looking for… and the gosebumps (smile).’’

Agnieszka then invited her close friend Alexandra Lokic (known as OlexSandra) to record vocals and a few months later her first release landed in the all streaming platforms. Being on air in the public and online radio stations, she received amazing reviews from both the audience and music journalists.

The success of the first Single urged Agnieszka to put her music production skills on another level, hence soon after the release she enrolled into the Music Production Master Diploma in Point Blank Music Scholl, London.

‘’…being a Musician and Music Producer are in fact two totally different worlds. I spent months on self-studying sound engineering by trying to understand the complexity of the mixing and mastering magic. In the beginning it was overwhelming, however once you know the basics, you then wish to know more and more, your sound is starting to improve due to the knowledge you just gained and this is basically how it works. You will never stop learning; you will continuously have this feeling of developing your skills to sound better.’’

Agnieszka is currently working on a new project – her own composition. She believes that by inviting young artists and musically inspired individuals to her projects, she would help expose their talent to the largest audience, as this was always the idea she had when she first decided to came back to the life of music. She is open for new collaborations, challenging herself and exploring different world of sound. Her recent fascination of ‘Stranger Things’ Netflix series music score composers Kylie Dixon and Michael Stein, might soon bring us some surprises…

Agnieszka doesn’t really wish to put her compositions on the same shelf with any specific music genre, however, she truly believes, that we will definitely recognise her from her new compositions and any future projects.

Though she was featured in recently released Lifoti's September 2019 issue 09, you can check it from below link's for your country: