2021 has been a banner year for Los Angeles based indie duo Magdalena Bay. They released their electrifying debut album, Mercurial World, wrapped up a large supporting tour with George Clanton and just announced their own headlining tour for 2022. Reaping a rich and eclectic sound from seeds of inspiration, Magdalena Bay’s Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin pair electro indie sounds with abstract and intricate lyrics while also somehow creating an online universe for their ideas, music and art to live and interact.
With their debut, the band expands on their wacky, psychedelic pop sound to curate a danceable, question seeking album filled with pulsating ebbs and flows. Strung together by existential questions and a musical path all their own, Magdalena Bay worked on the entirety of their album, from writing, performing, mixing and mastering all the tracks heard on the album. The resulting sound is a sharp, calculated symphony of modern psychedelia that racked up a #1 spot on Billboard’s New Artist Albums and Alternative New Artists.
Going deep into the conceptual, the band has also spent the last 18 months utilizing social media and the internet to disseminate their music and the philosophy behind it. Creating visually captivating, and often zany, music videos and other digital art for their music, offering listeners an immersive, digital landscape to share a moment of audio enlightenment with others.
The result is an alternate reality that plays on the advancement of technology and the internet by mixing old and new technological aesthetics in their multimedia art. With a Y2K inspired website, a TikTok account filled with musical hilarity and social commentary, and music videos that take you to another dimension, Magdalena Bay have created a multiverse to play in as they write songs, explore the convergence of time and consciousness and generally just follow their inspiration wherever it may go.
This masterful balance of technical know-how and creative intuitiveness is what has helped the band stand out and gain momentum this past year. From their music to their visuals, Magdalena Bay has captured fans’ attention in more ways than one, finding the right tone and mediums this year to push their creativity and engage a larger fan base.
Meeting over a decade ago at an after-school music program in their hometown of Miami, Tenenbaum and Lewin immediately bonded over similar music tastes. Though they parted ways for college, the two reconnected after their freshman year and continued to bounce musical ideas off each other, eventually reuniting to form their band.
Magdalena Bay closed off the year with two headlining shows in Southern California — Dec. 18 at the Roxy Theatre in L.A. and Dec. 19 at Viva! Pomona — and will kick off their headlining tour in February. The band also will be hitting the festival circuit with a set at This Ain’t No Picnic in Pasadena amongst others. For more info on their tour, make sure to visit the band’s website.
Words: Patti Sanchez
For more on Magdalena Bay, make sure to follow them on Instagram, Twitter and Spotify.
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