How Magdalena Bay Turned their Concept Album into a Live Sci-Fi Spectacle

Magdalena Bay doesn’t just make music; they build universes. What began with a fateful encounter between Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin at their Miami high school, where they bonded over Fiona Apple and prog rock, has blossomed into one of music’s most compelling and psychedelic alt-pop acts. This fall, they’ve taken their 2024 concept album Imaginal Disk on the road, where the surreal imagery of the duo’s videos and cover art takes life on stage. “Part of the live show that I really love is stepping into these different characters for each song,” says Tenenbaum. “I guess it makes the performance easier in a way, and more interesting too.” Indeed, the band’s work feels like a portal into a dreamy, digital dimension, one that gets richer with each new album. On a break before heading to Europe for the next leg of their worldwide tour, Lewin and Tenenbaum gave us a ring to talk about playing dress-up, longing for the old internet, and cherishing the music they listened to in high school. 

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KENNEDY ENLOWSMITH: Hi, Mica and Matthew. How are you guys? How’s the tour going?

MICA TENENBAUM: It’s great. We’re at home right now. We have a little bit of a break until our New Year’s show. The tour’s been good. I mean, it’s been one tour, but it’s also been a lot of different touring runs. So the show’s been evolving since we first started playing shows for the album last year.

ENLOWSMITH: And I know you guys met in high school, In an afterschool music program. I’d love to know what your sound was like back then and how it’s evolved over time.

MATTHEW LEWIN: Well, when we met, I was 16 and Mica was 15 and we were just at this program where we just learned cover songs, like classic rock stuff.

ENLOWSMITH: Totally.

MATTHEW LEWIN: I was super into classic rock and prog rock and ’70s stuff. So when we started making our music with that band, it was very influenced by that. I was beginning to write songs and was inspired by Fiona Apple and songwriters like that. 

ENLOWSMITH: Sounds like you guys were interested in slightly different genres. Do you ever feel like your ideas clash?

LEWIN: Well, as a teenager, the music you listen to is so key to your brain’s idea of what good music is and what affects you so much emotionally. So I think because we were discovering music and sharing music with each other during a formative period, our tastes became so intertwined. And that has resulted in us being creatively very much in tune with each other. 

TENENBAUM: We don’t really clash when it comes to what we like or what our vision is for our music, which is awesome.

LEWIN: Yeah. I mean, there’s obviously little minutiae that we might temporarily disagree on things or something, but it usually gets resolved.

ENLOWSMITH: I feel like that’s pretty rare. I make music and I feel like it’s hard for me to be able to write with someone, because sometimes I have a vision and I’m like, “I have to fulfill this.”

LEWIN: I think the most important thing is you have the same taste. So yeah, we’re lucky that ours are very much aligned.

ENLOWSMITH: Yeah. And it seems like your taste has evolved a little bit. You have a very synth-y, dreamy sound, and it kind of mixes between slow, but also very dance-like. I was wondering how you would describe that sound and also your inspirations.

TENENBAUM: I mean, as far as our inspirations, it includes that stuff that we liked in high school. We still love and listen to that music, but we’ve for sure discovered other artists and genres along the way. Our inspiration to start Magdalena Bay was kind of fueled by a discovery of pop. I guess as of recently, we’re listening a bit less to that kind of pop and more to—not necessarily what we listened to in high school. But for me, for example, I’ve been discovering REM. I never had a big REM phase before, so it’s been cool going through the discography. We’ve been listening to stuff like Talk Talk also. 

LEWIN: Yeah. We try to keep our minds open to different music and get inspired. You could listen to something outside of your genre and pick up things that inspire you. 

TENENBAUM: Things that you like.

LEWIN: Part of the appeal of creating new music is trying out new things, and playing with genre and exploring different moods. 

ENLOWSMITH: Definitely. I wanted to circle back to your more recent releases. The cover art seems to have a lot going on, but in the best way. It feels pretty trippy and you kind of created your own world. I’d love for you to explain what the cover art means. 

TENENBAUM: Yeah. We worked with an artist named Parker [Jackson] on this, and he is just super talented, and we’ve been a fan of his for a second. I think it’s really his interpretation of the music and the lyrics. Some of the characters in the cover art are straight out of the lyrics, like The Devil, for example. But it really is his interpretation of the world of each song that inspired the art.

LEWIN: Yeah, but definitely the maximalist elements draw from our approach to music in general.

ENLOWSMITH: Totally. And tell me about the costumes on this tour, which feel like they come from that same world.

TENENBAUM: Yeah. Developing the creative for the tour was fun and made easy in a way because for the record itself, we had a whole visual world to pull from. There’s a full album movie we’re working on and the music videos that have been released are basically excerpts from that. So when writing Imaginal Disk and coming up with these videos and the full album thing, we just had a vision for specific characters and a specific narrative in mind. It just became this thing that was great to pull from for the record. The way I’m performing is definitely informed by the videos and the character and all of the art around the album.

LEWIN: Yeah, the show is basically an interpretation of the story behind the album, and we include the same costumes, visual elements, and characters. Our plot is very loose.

TENENBAUM: [Laughs] Very loose. 

LEWIN: It’s basically a movie or a visual companion to the album. The runtime of the film will be the album. It’ll just go through the record, but with the characters and the story, and that interpretation of the music, if that makes sense.

ENLOWSMITH: When you’re performing on stage, Mica, do you feel like you’re sort of embodying the character that you’re playing?

TENENBAUM: That’s for sure. I mean, a part of the live show that I really love is stepping into these different characters for each song as the costume changes and different masks get added. I guess it makes the performance easier in a way and more interesting too when it feels like I’m in that role. On our first tours for our album Mercurial World, there were some songs where I would put on a mask or there would just be a different energy where it felt more like me embodying a character rather than me just being myself jumping around on stage. Those were my absolute favorite moments of every show. I realized I loved that and it kind of played into the vision for this tour.

ENLOWSMITH: I saw the photo of you in, was it an angel costume?

TENENBAUM: Yeah.

ENLOWSMITH: You guys have mentioned that sci-fi inspires your writing and the worlds that you create in your music.

TENENBAUM: Yeah, for sure. I mean, the narrative that we created that’s inspired by the record is a sci-fi story. Sci-fi is just a really cool vehicle for stretching the imagination and visually, too. It’s so fun to play with. The album cover is a science fiction image.

ENLOWSMITH: I’d love to hear more about how the tour is going. What are your must-have essentials that you bring on the road?

TENENBAUM: I’m trying to think. I mean, we must have essentials. Do you have any, Matt?

LEWIN: Besides socks and underwear?

TENENBAUM: Toiletries.

LEWIN: Yeah, I guess we don’t have that many things that we take with us. We try to have this portable espresso machine. It ended up being just too much of a hassle to use, and it just didn’t really work out this last tour. We used it a few times during the previous tour. 

ENLOWSMITH: Do you guys take a tour bus?

LEWIN: Yeah, we just started taking a tour bus this year. 

TENENBAUM: It’s been cool. We like watching movies. Oh yeah, must-haves are DVDs. A fan gifted us this amazing set of DVDs on this touring run and a previous one too with some really sick movies.

LEWIN: It’s definitely a must-have because buses are supposed to come with both wifi and satellite TV, but the problem is they never work. The DVD is imperative.

TENENBAUM: It’s crucial. And it’s so fun to watch both our band and crew after a show. 

ENLOWSMITH: I don’t even think I’ve heard the word DVD in years. I’ve noticed a lot of elements of 2000s media in your work. Are you guys super into old media from different eras? Does that inspire sound?

TENENBAUM: Yeah. We were kids in the early 2000s and we were playing computer games and watching DVDs. There’s a real element of nostalgia for us, but I also think it’s a fascination with technology from the past that is now defunct. There’s so much happening right now technologically that it’s comforting. 

LEWIN: Believe it or not, the internet used to feel kind of fun back in the day. 

ENLOWSMITH: It did. I miss the Tumblr era.

LEWIN: We’re talking about before that, I guess. Pre-social media internet.

TENENBAUM: You would just have computer games. 

LEWIN: Well, people would make websites, not like social media websites, but more of an interactive thing where there’d be little games or things to explore.

TENENBAUM: Yeah, it felt like a big playground. But everything’s centralized now around very specific websites, usually social media or Google.

ENLOWSMITH: Also, it’s so oversaturated and overwhelming. Do you have any pre-show rituals?

LEWIN: Not really. We’re thinking we need to make some because we’re hearing stories about other bands that get in a huddle and have a big inspirational speech. We don’t really do that because we’re like—it’s not necessarily anxiety or nervousness, it’s just a weird feeling before you get on stage.

TENENBAUM: I love performing, but up until that moment I feel like a zombie because it’s just a long day, and you’re in a dark space and you’re doing a soundtrack and you have your little routine. I have my tea and it’s all leading up to the show. I get my energy when I go out on stage, so I don’t do anything. I just get ready.

ENLOWSMITH: How do you decompress after a show?

TENENBAUM: We eat right after the show. We don’t have dinner before because it just feels really bad to perform when you’re full and you’re moving around and it’s a long set. So we perform a little hungry, but not too hungry.

LEWIN: Then we’re starving after.

TENENBAUM: We go crazy with some food after, and that’s the best time. We just chill. We take a nice hot shower and relax.

LEWIN: Yeah, then we’re pretty decompressed.

ENLOWSMITH: I know you guys are going to the UK and Europe soon. Have you been before, and which cities are you most excited to play?

TENENBAUM: We’ve been before, but we’re playing a lot of new cities this time. 

LEWIN: A lot of cold cities in February.

TENENBAUM: Yeah, it’s going to be really chilly. We’re going back to some places like Amsterdam, cities that we like. It’s always fun to return to a place.

LEWIN: We’ll be in Norway. Never done that. We’re playing in Denmark.

ENLOWSMITH: What’s in store for the future? Do you guys have any big plans besides your tour?

TENENBAUM: We’re working on the full album movie, so that’s exciting. It’s in post-production, but it’ll be done. It’s getting closer. 

LEWIN: No, I wish. It’s kind of a process. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. 

TENENBAUM: Kind of an ambitious undertaking for…

LEWIN: We just want to give ourselves time to get it right, because you only really get one chance to make it.

ENLOWSMITH: I’m looking forward to watching it. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. 

LEWIN: Our pleasure. Thank you.