Somewhere in the ether/net of our collective social cosmos soup floats the magical, masterful pop music of Magdalena Bay, the duo from Los Angeles composed of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin who is readying to release a timeless new relic of modern sound called Imaginal Disk.
While the pair may claim California as its terra firma, its true home is in the cloud/s, from where the two emit and output the unique yet familiar frequencies of synthesized nostalgia, kitschy catchiness, and bombastically warped neo-hooks for which the group has become celebrated. Transmitting in both the audio and video realms, Magdalena Bay is an entity adroitly suited for these times, caught in a haze of the known and felt while pushing sonic landscapes woven with the now into the next.
Having met as teenagers in a high school music program in their hometown of Miami (Tenebaum having moved to Florida at age 1 from Buenos Aires), each quickly recognized a kismet and kindred spirit in the other, resulting in the formation of a band, the prog outfit Tabula Rasa, as well as a romance. Lewin was a self-styled guitar shredder armed with his dad’s prog and concept rock records — The Wall, The Bends, Genesis, Fiona Apple — while Tenenbaum was a pianist and singer dipping toes in indie (Modest Mouse) and emo (My Chemical Romance) rock as well as pop made by princesses (Shakira, Britney). Both could read music and Lewin had even studied music theory, also teaching himself how to produce, record, and mix while making two Tabula Rasa records. The pair took a brief break from dating and headed to different colleges but kept the band together, often trading eight-hour bus rides from Penn to Northeastern and vice versa to rehearse, before eventually realizing two things: one, their relationship was too real to be denied, and two, no one young likes prog.
“It was like, ‘No one’s listening to our prog music, what a shame,’” Tenebaum says with a laugh. “We were excited to try something different. So we got into the mechanics of ‘what does it mean to write a pop song?’ and ‘what is this craft?’ and that was the beginning of Magdalena Bay.”
While writing Mercurial World the band had listened almost exclusively to contemporary pop music, but while working on this album the duo admits to avoiding any new music almost entirely. As a result, Disk abounds with acoustic drums and live instrumentation, lending an organic warmth and cohesiveness to its layers.
“While making this record, we were more open to experimenting and not sticking to the pop formula, and I think we realized what a Magdalena Bay song sounds and feels like,” Lewin says. “We’ve developed something unique to us and we’ve formed our sound or style, and we learned that the only way we can make something that we feel represents us is to do it on our own.”
“Something about this music feels a little different,” Tenenbaum adds. “We’re not as worried about sticking to a prescriptive structure, and it felt very free making these songs. Maybe it’s just taken us this long to finally combine all the facets of what we listen to but also what we like and what we want to make as musicians. The process of making music together is so natural that when we sat back and sequenced everything and listened, it was almost like the album existed in and of itself. Yeah, it’s probably a little more experimental, but hopefully people like that. This is it in its final form, and the rest will just have to be what it is.”
