Magdalena Bay & Dancing as Self-Actualization

TL;DR: Magdalena Bay's Imaginal Disk is an endlessly-complexly-produced trip through surreal soundscapes, providing immensely danceable tunes for the most hyper-aware generation.

Toward the end of 2021, Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Levin, together as synthpop duo Magdalena Bay, released their debut album Mercurial World. Sparkling and hypnotic, with a techno-vintage flair, the album was an excellent display of the group’s ability to blend styles new and old. It was almost like they had gotten dance music down to a science. Mag Bay’s latest release Imaginal Disk is, in my view, the fullest realization of their eclectic musical style, giving the listener whiplash as it bounces between moments of intimacy and grandiosity. Their adeptness at combining so many disparate ideas coincides with widespread fragmented attention borne from an era of algorithmically spoon-fed entertainment. Despite having a runtime of almost an hour, Imaginal Disk remains a breezy listen throughout, speaking to just how well-constructed the album is.

“She Looked Like Me!”

The album opener introduces the idea of gazing upon an idealized version of yourself (which, by definition, does not exist, but that doesn’t stop you from yearning for it anyway). For those unfamiliar with lead vocalist Mica’s somewhat breathy, somewhat babyish voice, it may take some getting used to, but I believe it’s an integral part of their sound. Lyrics like “America stole my fate / La love and a baby carriage” suggest that societal ideals of what life should be occupy some space in the narrator’s mind. A pervasive example of “customary” and “ordinary” (words repeated throughout the track) may be some version of a steady marriage with 2.3 kids and a house in the suburbs.

“Killing Time”

This is a more jaunty track, with a characteristically thumping bassline and lively use of synthesizer sounds. Here, Mica reflects on the value of life and time; how we simultaneously have too much time on our hands and can never get enough time. Soon the song devolves into chaos, with Mica's voice becoming almost demonic, suggesting some degree of internal conflict: “There's always time for killing but never time for me.” As if to say: “did you forget that this is your only chance at life?"

“True Blue Interlude”

Interludes hardly get any love, but I feel like this one is very important for the overall narrative of the album. Here, Mica introduces the “purest you” and the process required to go about creating this “ideal" version of yourself. Looking at the cover of the album, the insertion of a disk represents the insertion of more desirable personal “software": the making of a better, more “pure" you.

“Image”

This idea leads directly into one of the singles for the album. What the heck even is an imaginal disk? If we temporarily take a detour to my favorite website, Wikipedia, we can see that an imaginal disc (with a ‘c’) is “one of the parts of [an] insect larva that will become a portion of the outside of the adult insect during the pupal transformation.” What's important here is that Magdalena Bay uses metamorphosis in insects as an analogue for the process of someone evolving into a more realized version of themselves. They emphasize the idea of taking some dormant part of yourself and making it active and visible. This is where the song's title comes from: the last stage of an insect's metamorphosis is called the imaginal stage, coming from the Latin word for image. Even if we ignore all of this finely crafted subtext, there is no denying that the track is just plain groovy and shows that Magdalena Bay knows how to make people dance. Spacey, sci-fi vibes and a bruising bassline take this track to a whole other galaxy.

But oh, my God

Make me in your image

Oh, so hot

Through a two way mirror

“Death & Romance” / “Fear, Sex"

This is yet another massive, insanely memorable dance-pop anthem: glittering and iridescent, utilizing hummingbird-like fluttering synthesizers to great effect. The title makes me think that both death and romance are things that just happen, regardless of who “deserves it." That ultimately, we are all victims of circumstance. The song directly leads into “Fear, Sex,” with beautiful arpeggiated strings and a heavenly atmosphere. Both of these songs are contained in one music video.

Yeah, I give and you give

‘Til it's all that we have

You know nothing is fair in

Death and Romance

“Vampire in the Corner”

This is one of the more lovesick cuts on the album. A slight change in style, it's an excellent display of Tenenbaum’s vocal talent and expressiveness.

Vampirе in the corner, am I scaring you off?

Oh, I wanna dance, I wanna learn how to love

“Watching T.V.”

“Too much watching TV / It's gonna rot you from the inside out" seems like a clear allusion to the endless cycle of consumption that every young person is all too familiar with. It's a reminder of how we spend our time and how our choices could lead to atrophy. Here, Mag Bay explores this idea of “meeting the monsters inside you,” suggesting that changing yourself is a painful process. To serve that end, they perfectly use imperfect glitchiness and distortion. Then the second half of the song just floats away on a cloud of delicate synthesizers.

If you wanna be clean

You gotta scrub until the blood comes out

Get the spots in between

Slip your skin right off and hang it out

“Tunnel Vision”

This song addresses the suffering that results from self-awareness, from focusing on yourself so much that everything else becomes obscured. Halfway through, the song slows down, and the groove changes: stutter-stepping drums carry Tenenbaum’s vocals through the second half of the song. Ultimately, the message is a positive one, with Mag Bay implying that this obscured vision is something that can be overcome, perhaps by reminding yourself of love. The outro is just madness.

I've learned what made me start

What turned me on

Now I'm scared of all my parts

'Cause suddenly I can see everything wrong

“Love is Everywhere”

This song is interesting because it reuses an instrumental that appeared on Lil Yachty’s 2023 album Let’s Start Here as "Running Out of Time." It turns out that Mag Bay actually co-produced the original song and likely wanted to reuse the instrumental at some point in the future. Who did it better? You can debate the correctness or triteness of the song's title, but perhaps Mag Bay is saying that opportunities for love exist everywhere, and it's your choice whether or not you want to engage. It makes you wonder if transcendence, in whatever form you desire, requires some other person. Perhaps connecting with someone else is the transcendent act itself. If love is the full acceptance of another human being, then nothing could be more godly than that.

Love is everywhere…

If you want it there

“Feeling DiskInserted?"

This song is less than a minute long, but I have to quickly acknowledge the pun in the title.

“That’s My Floor”

This was the last single for the album, and what a change of pace it is, featuring almost disgustingly distorted bass guitar slapped so hard that the reverberations are felt long after the album is even over. The groove is incredible. The lyrics are harder to parse through on this one, though I have to mention a fun sitar cameo. Ultimately, what I get from this song is a certain carelessness and freedom that is not really seen on the preceding tracks.

So maybe if I opened up my mind

I could really learn to look alive

Never really noticed I'm the transcendental type

“Cry for Me"

This song really is just pure pop perfection—an operatic anthem that the group has said was inspired by ABBA’s "Dancing Queen." In my opinion, this song has the very best lyrics present on this album. This might be the best track on the album.

Fate, lead me astray

Take me whole and wash me away

All along, there was a story

Spare me all the allegories please

...

Share a little kiss, and that's forevеr

Think of love when you remember me

“Angel on a Satellite"

This is more of a mellow cut with lovely orchestral background arrangement. The lyric, “That's why I'm always dancing," is where I get the idea that dancing for the narrator is reaching some higher plane of existence. If you are familiar with the therapist’s forever favorite ‘Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this is the uppermost section of the oft-meme triangle: self-actualization. Total synchronicity between mind and body, complete freedom. Dancing requires a certain level of divorcing yourself from reality for some short period of time. The words “jubilate" and “exuberate" remind me of “vibrate." That such an act requires physical movement of some kind. Heat itself is just the manifestation of particles experiencing movement.

Damn, man, play that thing

Makes me think of summer winds

And faces that I know

Just the ones I love to hold

...

'Cause when I see me through your eyes

I love me, so don't leave my side

“The Ballad of Matt & Mica” is an almost cocky musical victory lap. The title of the song is certainly a reference to The Beatles’ “The Ballad of John and Yoko." The infusion of their names is less about Matt and Mica specifically and more about the duo, almost inviting you to insert your own names into the title. It interpolates the first track, suggesting a resolution of the previous wrestling with self-image, with the repetition of “not ordinary” hinting at some practice of radical self-acceptance. They call back to “killing time," which implies that the narrator has found inner peace with even the most mundane or unimportant parts of life.

I think this album is fantastic and pushes us to think about the purpose that psychedelic music serves in the digital age. What we have seen with the advent of the internet is that everything is brighter, bigger, and fuller than before and I believe that Imaginal Disk reflects that to an astonishing degree.