‘It’s In regards to the Large Questions’: Magdalena Bay’s Good New Album Is The place Pop Meets Prog-Rock

Right here, Magdalena Bay speak about their distinctive tackle the traditional idea album, why they returned to their high-school roots when it got here to the file’s influences, and their plans to carry the Imaginal Disk world to life whereas on the highway.

Vogue: How are you feeling proper now, a few weeks out from the discharge of the album?

Matt Lewin: I feel we’re simply wanting to get the entire thing out, since you do the singles and it’s heartbreaking—effectively, not heartbreaking, however it’s a tricky course of, since you actually simply need individuals to take heed to it all over. So that you give individuals these little tastes of it, however you are feeling such as you’re not getting the total factor. We’re prepared for all of it to be out.

Mica Tenenbaum: Very prepared.

I really feel just like the singles are a pleasant cross-section of what the album has to supply, although—of all its completely different flavors.

ML: Completely.

MT: That was positively the objective.

ML: I feel the singles served their goal. However I really feel like for many artists, in a really perfect world, you could possibly simply neglect concerning the promotional technique and simply put it out. However that’s not…

MT: That’s not the world we dwell in.

ML: There’s additionally one thing good concerning the singles and the tease and constructing the anticipation. That’s enjoyable for us.

MT: It simply makes us nervous additionally. [Laughs.]

Given it’s one thing of an idea album, what got here first: the songs or the idea?

MT: At first, the music.

ML: The songs at all times come first.

MT: However I used to be entertaining some ideas whereas we wrote the songs. As a result of with Mercurial World, it was very a lot a case of songs first, idea later. So I did need to maintain these broader concepts in thoughts when engaged on this one, with out essentially forcing something.

ML: I’d say it’s like a unfastened idea album. It’s not like a Tommy state of affairs the place the songs define the story. I feel there are themes all through the album, however I really feel that’s the identical with Mercurial World. It’s conceptual however I wouldn’t essentially name it an idea album. I don’t know if you happen to agree, Mica?