Los Angeles'
Magdalena Bay strike a vivid, aquamarine-colored tone on their sophomore album, 2024's absurdist and sensual
Imaginal Disk. The follow-up to their 2021 debut,
Mercurial World, the record once again features the collaborative talents of singer
Mica Tenenbaum and instrumentalist/producer
Matt Lewin. If their first album was a hyper-colored pop kaleidoscope, on
Imaginal Disk they push it even further, crafting a 3-D stereogram of psychedelic new age dance-pop, much of which has the quirky yet oddly alluring Internet aesthetic of a
Kate Bush album cybernetically filtered through AOL instant messenger software. Here,
Tenenbaum is a cherubic diva,
Madonna as Pikachu, her highly resonant voice framed in a sonically textured blend of analog and electronic instruments, including synths, piano, cloudy strings, and astral horns. It's an absolutely distinctive vibe, yet one that fits nicely between the equally conceptual pop of
Charli xcx and
Caroline Polacheck, both of whom
Magdalena Bay have toured with. There's a stylistically varied, decade-mashing quality to many of the tracks. This is especially evident in the piano-driven "Death & Romance," a hooky anthem that sounds intoxicatingly like early-2000s
Kylie Minogue mixed with '80s stadium prog and '90s house production. Similarly evocative, "Love Is Everywhere," with its languid rap and liquid bass, brings to mind an improbable combination of
Blondie,
the Commodores, and '80s synth pop outfit
T'Pau. Elsewhere, they dive into the gothy yacht rock of "Killing Time" and mix relaxing nature sounds and a majestic baroque pop balladry on "Angel on a Satellite." All of this conjures a romantic, pastel-hued retro-futurism, one where love lingers forever both spiritually and virtually. It has an existential quality, as in "Death & Romance" where
Tenenbaum seemingly ponders how we process love through sense memory, singing, "Monday, through an echo/Feels like heaven/Feels like heartache." With
Imaginal Disk,
Magdalena Bay straddle pop worlds, bringing together a maximalist dance club atmosphere and ecstasy-laced, burning Wicker Man euphoria, all filtered through a dial-up computer dream of the pop future. ~ Matt Collar
