Change the record: Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk

As with many types of art, the way you are going to get the best experience as a dedicated music nerd or even just a casual music listener is to dig into the deep and flooded spheres of indie music. It’s the landscape with the lowest bar for entry, meaning anyone and anything, regardless of talent, drive, creativity, or anything else, can make a project and upload it on the internet for millions to see. While this means plenty of derivative crap can hit the scene like dog turds against a wall, it also means that truly creative and unique music projects can find an audience without the need for label influence, being able to craft a career off word-of-mouth alone.

This brings us to today’s highlight, Magdalena Bay, a pop music duo from Miami, Florida, composed of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, who are married. Their debut 2021 album, “Mercurial World,” made quite a splash in the indie music scene. Its divine blends of synthpop, dance-pop, electropop, and basically any pop that requires lots of beautiful noises, with Mica’s soft, pillowy vocals, equivalent to laying on a cloud in a big warm blanket, made the album an instant hit with people, garnering relative acclaim from review outlets such as Pitchfork, Rate Your Music, and The Needle Drop. As for my opinion on it? Embarrassingly, I never listened to it; I took all of the praise from what the reviewers said. I don’t really have a reason I didn’t give it a listen; it kind of just got swept up in the current of the several other albums released that year, and I wasn’t able to give it my time.

This year, though, was different, with their newest album, “Imaginal Disk,” garnering even higher and more uproarious praise from these same forums, as well as many of my friends. I decided it was high time to finally give this band a listen. That was probably the best decision I’ve made this year… I’ve had a pretty boring year.

Admittedly, my first listen was a confused, if mostly enjoyable one, but I can’t say I thought it lived up to the hype on the first listen. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I realized I had listened to the album about 50 times already. This album is the definition of a “grower” for me, with each gorgeous pocket of sound and experience hitting me anew each time I listen to it. Every new listen makes me appreciate a new track or a new part of the album I didn’t before.

Let’s start with the opener, the bombastic “She Looked Like Me!” a song that’s somehow only three minutes but simultaneously feels like a 17-minute epic and a two-second burst of euphoria. With the soft, beautiful vocal sample at the beginning and the loud, bombastic, and powerful drums starting in verse two, Mica’s anthemic third verse has become an earworm to defeat all other earworms this year. I’d describe it as perhaps the perfect opener. The lyrics paint a picture of idealizing oneself to the point of self-loathing, as well as the idea of family legacy and expectation, as it explodes in verse three and keeps the pace going beautifully. After that is “Killing Time,” a slower guitar-led piece that sounds as relaxing as it does somber, with some beautiful synth work and a satisfying drum track throughout, it ends wonderfully on an absolutely bitchin’ guitar riff at the end.

Most of the drums on this album were provided by the very talented Nick Villa, formerly of the band Tabula Rossi. They provide a fantastic boon for the album. The drums are steady and punchy and provide a good rhythm and impact for the whole album. This is apparent on the next track as well, “Image,” with its steady drum machine track and Mica’s angelic vocals providing a bedrock foundation for a bop of the year, as well as some thoughtful musings on self-image and freedom, all with one of the most gorgeous choruses of the year. After this is the fantastic three-track run of “Death & Romance,” “Fear Sex,” and “Vampire In The Corner.” “Death And Romance” begins with an amazing upbeat piano track, theatrical and powerful, as Mica leads a sunshiney and powerful pop banger, which leads right into the shorter “Fear Sex,” led with an addictive string melody and ambient synths swooshing throughout, as Mica gets more contemplative and nostalgic. It gives the track a very low-key and subdued feel. Finally, we have “Vampire In The Corner,” a more playful and bouncy minimalist track that continues off those feelings of remembrance from “Fear Sex,” as Mica sings about the still lingering feelings of an ex. It’s quiet, fun, and sad in a way that feels relatably awkward.

Other highlight tracks include the rich and orchestral “Tunnel Vision,” the bright and explosive “That’s My Floor,” which fits with the theme of the album, has an absolute banger of a chorus, and the song “Cry For Me,” a five-minute odyssey that flies through very ABBA-esque strings and synths so powerful it almost feels like Mica’s being swallowed whole mid-track and an intoxicating finish of amazing vocals and drums. Lastly, we have “The Ballad Of Matt And Mica,” a fully cathartic release of the whole album, filled with flawless production as always, and repeating the vocal melodies from track one as a perfect bookend to the psychedelic synthy adventure we were just taken on together. Very few closers bring as much emotion out of me as this one.

I always stay wary of albums being hyped as one of the best of the year, but this one earns that accolade and then some, floating by on a somber ocean of pixelated madness. It feels like an album that could only exist now, could’ve been made in the golden age of the 80s, and will be timeless forever, all at the same time. It is a wholehearted recommendation for me, probably my favorite pop album of the year. Sorry, Charli XCX stans, though I’ll be getting to you soon, just wait ‘till after election season.