On their debut full-length album, 2021's frothy and addictive
Mercurial World, Los Angeles duo
Magdalena Bay smash all of their varied synth pop, disco, and electronica influences into a big, sparkly blender and pour out one dazzling pop smoothie after another. While a fitting analogy for their sweetly attenuated and endlessly cross-pollinated sound, it somewhat under-sells the skill and songcraft that vocalist
Mica Tenenbaum and instrumentalist
Matt Lewin bring to their work. With her cherubic croon,
Tenenbaum is an enticing dichotomy, a baby-voiced
Kate Bush whose sultry lilt somehow evokes '80s
Madonna just as easily as it does '70s
Minnie Riperton. It's a knowing vocal style that would be easy to dismiss as a kitschy, postmodern bit if
Tenenbaum weren't also such a gifted singer. Adding to the broad stylistic flow of the album is
Lewin, whose production and arranging skills deftly straddle the line between the earthy soul of
Quincy Jones and the hypnotic dreamscapes of
M83. Tracks like "Dawning of the Season," "Secrets (Your Fire)," and "Hysterical Us" are cheeky, endlessly hooky songs that find the duo drawing upon such specific influences as
Gwen Stefani's solo work, the '70s disco of
Chic, and 2000s
Britney Spears. Equally compelling are cuts like "You Lose!" and "Chaeri," fuzzy 8-bit anthems that build to gargantuan moments of cinematic
Smashing Pumpkins-esque grandeur. That
Magdalena Bay also augment their capital "P" pop melodies with industrial textures, shoegaze flourishes, and plenty of funked-out bass grooves means that
Mercurial World offers both sugary melodic highs and deeper sonic layers to explore. ~ Matt Collar
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