Hi, everyone. Diskthony Mantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Magdalena Bay record, Imaginal Disk.
Here we have the sophom*ore album of pop project Magdalena Bay, the songwriter-producer duo that consists of Mica Tenenbaum as well as Matthew Lewin, who quickly became one of the most beloved duos on the underground pop circuit through a really solid combo of great music and DIY marketing. Because at this point, not only is the duo known for crafting a very thoughtful and futuristic synthpop, but they've also been known to routinely drop TikToks and social media posts that build up this weird humorous lore around Mag Bay.
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This serious and cheeky world building exercise has most definitely continued as the duo has built up a very passionate cult following, racked up some rave reviews, even extending this into the music videos behind the singles on this new album here, too. The reception of which is proving to be even stronger than that of their last, and it's not hard to see why.
In comparison with Mercurial World, I think Imaginal Disk is an improvement, an ambitious improvement on all fronts. In terms of versatility, conceptuality, attention to detail, songwriting, and production quality. There are even points on this record where things come full circle. It feels like Matt and Mika go back to their old selves a bit.
As hardcore fans will recall, their previous band, Tabula Rasa, was more of a prog and art rock thing. There are numerous tracks on Imaginal Disk where they dabble in exactly that, working some pretty epic rock passages into these super layered and expansive pop anthems. However, once again, though, the true bread and butter of this album is synth pop that sounds like it was made in a different galaxy, a different dimension, an alternate reality.
The genre palette of this album sees Matt and Mika dabbling in more alternative dance, dance pop, disco, and even psychedelic music, too. It's a very diverse journey of sounds, much in the same way that Mercurial World was. But Imaginal Disk is most definitely an expansion on that, not just sonically, but also in terms of runtime, too, because the length of this album is almost an hour. We have 15 tracks with a few interludes in the mix as well.
All in all, it really is a little pop epic, and it certainly kicks off with that energy on the opening track, "She Looked Like Me!", which starts off cute enough with some twinkling keys and Tenenbaum's very soft angelic voice. But it all quickly grows into this surrealist ode to self-love and self-image, with bright horns and pounding industrial-sized drum hits. The lyrics see Tenenbaum describing somebody who resembles her, pretty much is her, but she's described to be a different person. And there's an embrace, a feeling of love. Overall, it's a great tone setter that displays just how grand the production is going to be deeper into the record, and it also narratively sets up some of the themes that we'll be dove into more deeply later.
Following this, we have the very slick and groovy "Killing Time," which is a sweet bit of synth pop with some great bass lines and electric keys, on top of which Mika sings some very sharp and contemplative lyrics about time, the ways in which we use it, take it, lose track of it, forget about it in a moment's notice. Employing idioms around, of course, killing time. There are also themes of death and mortality that crop up in the track, too, that I think are explored a little bit more later.
The "True Blue Interlude" on the album once again brings up themes and ideas around your true self or a new version of yourself being introduced to that version. I think this track very much works as a setup for the following track, "Image", which was a single to the record that upon first listening I wasn't really blown away by. Lord knows that Mika has had bolder performances on past Mag Bay singles, but the song is still a really great piece of linear dance pop with some undeniable grooves. The whole track, honestly, would work as an instrumental version, too. Like if you dropped it into a DJ set, it's that good, it's that funky. But I appreciate Mika's vocal so much more in the context of the record because they do bring a beautiful eeriness to the whole thing. And once again, it does add to some overarching themes on the entire album, especially on the intro where you're talking about meeting a version of yourself, a brand new image in this instance.
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Meanwhile, mortality and love turn up once again as themes on the track "Death & Romance", which stylistically is like a '90s alternative dance throwback with some nice psychedelic touches in the production. Once again, there's an eerie beauty to this track, there is a bitter-sweet contrast between the very sweet danceable instrumental and what's going on in the lyrics.
As Mika describes this very dark but profound portrayal of love being something where you give till it's all that you have and you know nothing is fair in death and romance. Till death do us part in so many words. Musically and structurally "Fear, Sex" is a quick interlude moment that is passable for the most part, though I do think it does add some interesting narrative and conspiratorial layers to the record as Mika describes dirty baskets putting wires in someone's head, which I think sets things up for the dark narrative turn that follows on "Vampire in the Corner", which has one of the cutest chord and melody combos on the entire record.
I also love hearing Mika's voice in this much more hushed, intimate setting. Her vocals are so quiet but so sweet and expressive, too. The whole song describes a desire for love in a sense, but also feeling too weird and off-putting and maybe too into the love that you're interested to actually achieve it. There's a want, there's a need there, but simultaneously, there's also this disorienting blockage in the way that is difficult to describe. The whole track comes to this really huge, confusing, and almost abrasive crescendo of sounds. It sounds like hearing 200 kazooz going off at once. It's an absolutely insane display of layers for sure.
Following this, "Watching T.V.", I'm just a bit torn on, though, as I think the progressive ever-changing structure of the track keeps very little of what goes on in the first leg from sticking all that much. However, the ending crescendo on the track is incredible and does bring back those prog vibes in a big way. Lyrically, I do think this song is a great contrast from a lot of the bright and utopian imagery that is brought in the first leg of songs on the record, as Mika says very directly on the song that it's a time to meet the monsters inside you.
And this track quickly segues not just sonically, but narratively, too, into the following "Tunnel Vision", which is this track that's built on these very cute indie-tronic beats and quaint synthesizer layers, at least at the start anyway. Toward the end, this is one of several tracks on the record that, like I said earlier, launches off into this prog rock epic with a lot of layers of disorienting synthetic and organic noise. It's a really insane and cinematic display, really like something out of a horror movie.
Meanwhile, lyrically, we have a lot of the themes of the previous song being reinforced, where Mika describes on some level being afraid of recognizing and seeing her actual self where you actually witness your imperfections, your shortcomings, your demons, which manifests in lyrics like:
"I've learned what made me start? / What turned me on? / Now I'm scared of all my parts / Because suddenly I can see everything wrong / Then I get tunnel vision closing in over me."
From here, though, I think we come to some peak or revelation in the tracklist on "Love Is Everywhere". This very bright feel good string-kissed piece of funk, which when you get down to it, seems to very much be about love being there and being present as long as you are willing to accept it.
I also want to quickly add here that some fans may recognize the instrumental on this track as having a lot in common with that of Lil Yachty's, "running out of time", one of the tracks from his experimental rock and psychedelic pop album. And that's because Matthew and Mika actually have production credits on that track, seemingly, the beats on these two songs are pretty much the same. I guess what happened is they must have just allowed Lil Yachty to maybe dig through the vault or just offered some production that they had lying around to him, but then, I guess, later intended to reuse it themselves for a different song in a different context. So either way, the similarity is there and just thought it was interesting.
After this, we have the "Feeling DiskInserted?" interlude, which I would say is a pretty accurate description of the majority of emotions that fuel the songs on this album, the unsettling vibes, the confusion. But it's a beautiful confusion, though, I would say, especially in the final leg of the album where I think Mag Bay dishes out some of the strongest material on the album. We have some fantastic, fuzzed-out, crispy, acid-washed funk pop on "That's My Floor", which has some insane transcendental imagery of a hotel, an elevator, a fire, a party. It's really an interesting puzzle to put together narratively.
Then this makes quite the transition into "Cry For Me", which is a synthy soaring, cinematic piece of disco that is obviously very Abba-inspired. But if you could make their material sound a little bit more smooth and intergalactic while still keeping some of that theatrical camp, especially with the character a lot on this one. Then in a way, a lot of the major themes of the album come to a head on the stunningly beautiful "Angel on a Satellite", where the soaring strings and disco groove return once again, but only after some very contemplative pianos and intimate vocals from Mika that dive in once again to this idea around learning to love, learning to accept love, learning to see and experience the world and yourself through a person you love, which of course leads to lyrics like:
"Because when I see me through your eyes / I love me, so don't leave my side / You always see the sky, angel on a satellite."
Then the closing track diverges from a lot of the main narratives on the album for an epilog and credits roll type moment. It's this cute little ode to the duo's journey as a music group. It's super fun with all these intergalactic little synth layers and this absolutely insane buildup moment where it seems like the track is really going to pop off, but then it hits a with all these vocal layers, but the tempo slows down, so it busts into this weird slowmo moment, which is just one of many weird, progressive, experimental, but dazzling elements of the track.
Overall, I would say that once again, Magdalena Bay has done it and have really outdone themselves, as I do genuinely think that this record, for anybody who gives it the actual time of day, will see it as one of the best experiences they'll have with a pop record in 2024. The lyrics are thoughtful, the songs are snappy, the production is very high grade, high quality, and high detail. You have a lot of concepts and recurring themes throughout the record, narratively and sonically, that makes the entire thing like an onion.
You can keep pulling back layers on every time you listen to it. There are a couple of tracks whose progressions I found to be just a wee bit tedious, but that's about it. Maybe there are some spots where I think the various themes and narratives throughout the record could have been spelled out a little bit better or linked a bit more closely or created creatively.
But those are very minor criticisms at the end of the day. I feel like the flow of this record is excellent. The performances are fantastic, too. The mixes are great as well. I just don't really have a lot to tear this album up over. It's just a great pop record, a great creative, amazing little pop record, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent nine on it.
Anthony Fantano, Magdalena Bay, Forever.
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