The Secret ABBA Influence on Magdalena Bay’s New Album

Switched on Pop is running Newcomers, a three-part series of interviews with breakout artists. This week, Reanna Cruz interviewed Magdalena Bay.

Few groups are making as inventive, catchy pop music as Magdalena Bay. The Los Angeles–based duo of singer Mica Tenenbaum and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Lewin has dabbled in everything from ’70s disco to Y2K pastiche. Their music, often narrative-based and paired with equally stunning visuals, excels in tension, pairing gossamer-sounding production with dark lyrics.

Their sophomore album, Imaginal Disk (out today), is no exception. The record is a concept record of sorts (though “not like Tommy,” as Lewin is quick to clarify). It follows the story of a character named True who receives a “consciousness upgrade” in the form of the titular “imaginal disk.” Over the course of 15 songs, Tenenbaum and Lewin tell a story about identity, technology, and what it means to be human.

It’s a lofty record, so Switched on Pop sat down with Magdalena Bay to talk about how this album manages to sound so gorgeous, taking cues from ABBA and Tony Banks in the process. You can hear the full conversation on the latest episode of Switched on Pop.

My favorite song on the record is “Cry for Me.” In terms of the narrative, it feels like an emotional breakthrough.
Matthew Levin: The writing of that one was interesting because we started with that first section, then there’s this middle sort of bridge that ties it together. When were working on that song, I was obsessed with “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. I was like, This song has the best feeling of all time and I just want to figure out a way to capture a bit of that. I don’t know if I was successful. But that’s basically where the the second section originated from. Obviously, “Cry for Me” is so much more moody and dramatic than “Dancing Queen” is. But I think, hopefully, there’s a little bit that makes its way into it.

Mica Tenenbaum: Yeah, “Cry for Me,” I feel like it’s one of those that’s written from the perspective of this character who’s a villain and has somehow been, like, cast out and is on a journey of wanting absolution, but is just begging to be remembered in a positive light, and then craving to be washed free of their sins and reborn as a pure being.

M.L.: It definitely feels like the climax of the hero’s journey of the record where they’ve sort of gone through it all — they’ve expressed a little bit of hubris and then have been taken down by the gods and now they’re sort of on their knees. I think there is this big melodrama happening in the song, which is why we love it.

This is a very specific compliment, but I wanted to talk about pianos on “Cry for Me” too. They’re mixed really well. How did you choose what instruments you put forward in such an eclectic mix?
M.L.: This record is a lot more piano forward than some of the other stuff we’ve been writing. It’s probably because of the music we were listening to — Genesis and Tony Banks’s keyboards. We were taking inspiration from that. We also have access to an acoustic piano now, which we didn’t have previously. I think just being able to write on an upright piano is a big game changer.

M.T.: We had one before, but it had, like, a really jangly — a messed-up, out-of-tune sound. Just having one that sounds nice is awesome.

It’s funny that you bring up Genesis, because I feel the same way about their drums as I do on this new album. They’re really out front, especially on a song like “Fear Sex.”
M.T.: Yeah, it’s more organic sounding. I wonder if it’s because we were listening to more music with live drums. But also it might be from interpreting our live drums into those electronic drum parts.

Matt: Yeah, the big difference between this record and our last is that almost every song has live drum recording on it. It’s all our touring drummer, Nick, who was in our high-school band and who we’ve known for a long time. He’s playing on almost every song, which I think really shifted the sound of the record in a big way.