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Magdalena Bay’s Irresistible DIY Pop, Throwback Vibes

Meta: Through irresistible, DIY pop-music and homespun, lo-fi throwback videos, Magdalena Bay vibes relatability and looks to break big in 2020.

Magdalena Bay is probably most known as a geographical destination for California grey whales that migrate to Mexico during the winter to mate. Magdalena Bay, the Los-Angeles-based Miami-reared electro-pop duo with a 20th century vibe and a DIY bedroom indie appeal, might surpass the whale destination as the go-to Magdalena Bay of 2020.

Mica Tenenbaum (songwriting and vocals) and Matthew Lewin (songwriting, vocals and production) have been crafting music together since their high school days. They debuted their new project, a shimmery pop music about-face under the moniker Magdalena Bay (aka Mag Bae) in 2016. This past year represented the first full year during which the duo lived and worked together in the same city since their high school graduations.

Originally a prog-rock band, Mica and Matthew forged a niche outside the mainstream Miami music scene. After their sojourn west and a seismic sonic shift into electronic-based pop music, they’ve moved toward the middle but still find themselves guided by that left-of-center mentality.

Mag Bae appeared on indie radars after going viral with a series of lo-fi mini-music videos featuring a striking “early 90’s late-night public access television” aesthetic. Many of these bite-sized retro-futuristic songs appeared on their mini mix vol. 1 compilation, released in mid-July. The exercise began as a way to purge bits of unfinished songs and focus on the journey to completion rather than fussing over the deluge of production minutiae.

Less an album than a pastiche of scraps, the mix’s standout track, a confection called “Nothing Baby” features an irresistible beat and a wall-to-wall hook that channels Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani. Highlighting their DIY roots, the companion video for the two-minute banger features footage shot by Mica’s family while on vacation in Japan laced with static and pixelation brought to you by limited-bandwidth and buffering near you. Go ahead — play it as many times as you like, but you’ll never get enough.

If “Nothing Baby” looks back at pop divas of the 90’s, the final track on mini mix, vol. 1, “Mine,” does so while pointing to Magdalena Bay’s future. The band wields sincere reverence for pop artists of the past (even contemporary punchlines like the Spice Girls) like a machete, carving out a path to a new decade of grassroots dance music. Mag Bae’s desire to re-take pop in the name of independently minded do-it-yourself artists comes through Matthew’s glitches and simple electronic effects that gives Mica’s starpower extra wattage.

“One night is taking up my whole life lately / Oh, the words you spoke / I’m looking for some antidote / That’s right, found each other but the timing wasn’t right / So you said baby” Mica sings, showcasing the simple symbiosis of a voice serving the hook and the hook supporting the vocals.

In December, the band released their fourth EP of the year. Oh Hell builds on their mini mix viral momentum and the self-assurance of “Mine.” The title track oozes sleazy seduction; the lust rests in the details. Matt’s slinky, shimmery production carries on into “Killshot,” a lovelorn dance ballad with a disco fetish. Always on brand, Magdalena Bay released an ultra-erotic, ultra-creepy, ultra-homebrewed video that brings out the best elements of their songwriting and production.

It’s impossible to say whether the release of mini mix vol. 1 expedited the duo’s growth by exorcising the clutter, but the songs contained on Oh Hell display a confidence that might not have been present in their early 2019 releases such as the dual EPs night/pop and day/pop, which feel less uniquely Magdalena Bay and more like Chromatics and Cut Copy idol worship. Their singular spirit carries through each of these latter releases, but maturity has added substance rather than mute mini mix’s unique incandescence.

It’s often easy to pump the brakes on a band that hasn’t yet released a full-length record, but Mag Bae released 20 new tracks in 2019 without a single pinch. Any band would be tested to come up with a more appealing and focused brand straight out of the gate. Mica and Matthew made 2019 their sandbox, and fans are flocking to Magdalena Bay’s relatability and appealing vibes inspired by leg warmers, Kylie Minogue, and Casio CTK-30 keyboards.

When asked about the ideal project, they answered that they’d love to provide backing music in some kind of Nicolas Cage movie. That gives you a sense of their wavelength. If Matt and Mica properly and rightly assume the electro-pop throne, the future might feature Zubaz pants, Bill Clinton cameos on late-night television, and 64kbps dial-up modems, but it’ll be simply irresistible.

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Music

CHVRCHES’ “The Bones of What You Believe,” the Force Majeure of Brooding Poptronica

Chvrches’ The Bones of What You Believe received immediate critical and commercial success after its 2013 release.
Chvrches – The Bones of What You Believe (2013)

Description: Chvrches’ The Bones of What You Believe received immediate critical and commercial success after its 2013 release.

Meta: On the Bones of What You Believe, CHVRCHES wraps layers of instantly accessible electronic pop soundscapes around the scars of human emotion.

(originally published on Music Meet Fans)

An irresistible song called “Lies” by a Scottish band named Chvrches appeared on the internet one day in May 2012, as if conjured from the ether. Vacillating waves of synth and playful electronic effects supporting an anonymous female vocalist. Released on the Neon Gold website and accompanied only by a picture of nuns in masks, “Lies” rocketed to number one on the MP3 aggregate blog The Hype Machine and received a tremendous amount of organic, blog-based buzz after regular airplay on SoundCloud and BBC Radio 1. “Lies,” alongside “The Mother We Share,” “Gun,” and “Recover,” fueled the immense pre-release anticipation for the band’s debut full-length The Bones of What You Believe.

“There was this democracy on SoundCloud at the time… where you could use it as a very pure form of marketing. It was about whether people were interested in what you had to say musically, and nothing else,” Martin Doherty said about the early days recording and releasing the first Chvrches songs that would comprise the bulk of their debut record.

The album’s title derives from a lyric in “Strong Hand,” a song that was ultimately cut from the original track list only to be reinstated on the 2014 Special Edition release. According to frontwoman Lauren Mayberry, the lyric refers to the raw “creativity and effort” that fueled the months of sweat and preparation leading up to the album’s release.

Chvrches, the trio of Doherty, Mayberry and Iain Cook, became a viral juggernaut because they made instantly accessible electronic music, but they attained indie omnipresence because that accessible electronic music also contained a human pulse and lyrics that transcended the escapist natter of contemporary, manufactured pop music.

Some of that crossover appeal might be explained by their outsider status. None of these artists had ever produced music that sounded like this in any of their other projects. They had all cut their teeth working with guitars and angst, traditional tools of the indie-rock trade. Doherty’s longest-tenured job came as a member of post-punk Scottish shoegazers The Twlight Sad, a band best known for their dense, “ear-splitting” live performances. Mayberry still looks to Nirvana for inspiration. Attend a Chvrches show and you’ll see glimmers of those origins more readily than in their polished studio recordings.

“It might be difficult to tell,” Cook said in an interview with The Scotsman, “but I think there are still elements of what we’ve done before in the music we’re making now. But the arrangements and the instrumentation, and the focus on catchy melodies and stuff, I guess that’s new for us.”

In an era where buzz for synth-pop bands expands and bursts in the time it takes to blow an unimpressive bubble, Chvrches’ spire stands taller because they backed those “catchy” melodies and immaculate hooks with explosive catharsis. Iain Cook’s finely tuned production on The Bones of What You Believe hasn’t strangled the album of individualism; rather, he’s given each song a chance to breathe, creating a rollercoaster of processed effects and synth-pad cadences, thereby emulating the ebb and flow of human emotion.

“And when it all fucks up, you put your head in my hands / It’s a souvenir for when you go-o-o-oh,” Mayberry sings on “The Mother We Share,” the album’s deceptively nuanced opening volley, a song that might have been classified as a disposable confection if not for her willingness to embrace fragility. She calls attention to a darker side of euphoria – the pain of consciously and irreparably discarding an essential part of your whole. This naturalistic alliance between levity and despair runs throughout The Bones of What You Believe. Cook and Doherty’s pulsing and atmospheric throwback musicality balanced by Mayberry’s grounded sincerity. Cook even shouted out 1980’s horror movie scores – Charles’ Bernstein’s The Nightmare on Elm Street in particular – as a primary source of inspiration.

At the height of her powers on a peppy but vengeful track like “We Sink,” Lauren Mayberry possesses a relatable range that empowers her simple, emotive lyrics. In the ideal soundscape, her shortcomings as a songwriter attain potency beyond the burnished letters on the page. Depeche Mode’s primary wordsmith Martin Gore, who once called happy songs “fake and unrealistic,” serves as a direct antecedent.

Having opened for Depeche Mode early in their career, Chvrches serves as an extension of that same dual-minded ambition: anthemic and orchestral electronic music. And even though you might occasionally mistake catchy for “happy” on The Bones of What You Believe, Gore likely approves of the album’s scarcity of bliss. Mayberry has even credited Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan for teaching her how to command a stage – something she struggled with early on, as her initial presence failed to rival the self-assurance of Chvrches’ recordings.  

On “Gun,” “Recover” and “By the Throat” the band displays an outsized confidence in pacing and patience. This ability to dial back the cacophony before reaching a swelling dénouement would become more apparent on tracks found on their later records such as “Clearest Blue.” Here, however, the results feel less deliberate – each successive element inspired by the urgency of the individual moment.

The greatest example of this occurs on the lesser celebrated “Tether,” a song about emerging scarred but unbroken from a destructive relationship. It begins with a repetitive, understated guitar riff backing Mayberry’s lyrics.

“Trade our places / take no chances / bind me ‘til my lips are silent” she sings as the song’s urgency increases. Just beyond the two-minute mark, when you expect the individual components to unify, the bottom falls out for thirty seconds, leaving little more than a static hum. “I feel incapable of / Seeing the end / I feel incapable of / Saying it’s over,” she repeats. Synth and drum machine ascend and merge into one. The guitar returns, creating narrative agency and releasing the burden of hopelessness. It’s a moment perfected in the best work by a complex sonic craftsman like M83 – hardly territory covered in a self-produced debut record.While Chvrches has often been hailed as a band made by blogger hype, the description often suggests condescension, as if success fell into their lap. All three members paid industry dues before their instant chemistry forged a creative partnership that’s proven that they’re more than just another ephemeral synth-pop sensation. Bands toil throughout their entire careers to produce one song as resonant as the twelve on The Bones of What You Believe. It takes a lot of work to be that lucky. Chvrches may not have blazed new trails, but they resuscitated the beautiful, soulful heartbeat within electronic music. That singular sound, an assemblage of discarded elements, breathed new life into an increasingly droll independent landscape.

Categories
Music

CHVRCHES’ “The Bones of What You Believe,” the Force Majeure of Brooding Poptronica

(original published on Music Meet Fans)

An irresistible song called “Lies” by a Scottish band named Chvrches appeared on the internet one day in May 2012, as if conjured from the ether. Vacillating waves of synth and playful electronic effects supporting an anonymous female vocalist. Released on the Neon Gold website and accompanied only by a picture of nuns in masks, “Lies” rocketed to number one on the MP3 aggregate blog The Hype Machine and received a tremendous amount of organic, blog-based buzz after regular airplay on SoundCloud and BBC Radio 1. “Lies,” alongside “The Mother We Share,” “Gun,” and “Recover,” fueled the immense pre-release anticipation for the band’s debut full-length The Bones of What You Believe.

“There was this democracy on SoundCloud at the time… where you could use it as a very pure form of marketing. It was about whether people were interested in what you had to say musically, and nothing else,” Martin Doherty said about the early days recording and releasing the first Chvrches songs that would comprise the bulk of their debut record.

Strong Hand

The album’s title derives from a lyric in “Strong Hand,” a song that was ultimately cut from the original track list only to be reinstated on the 2014 Special Edition release. According to frontwoman Lauren Mayberry, the lyric refers to the raw “creativity and effort” that fueled the months of sweat and preparation leading up to the album’s release.

Once labeled merely a blog-band, Chvrches’ The Bones of What You Believe cemented the band as a force in the independent music landscape.
Chvrches – Martin Doherty, Lauren Mayberry, and Iain Cook

Chvrches, the trio of Doherty, Mayberry and Iain Cook, became a viral juggernaut because they made instantly accessible electronic music, but they attained indie omnipresence because that accessible electronic music also contained a human pulse and lyrics that transcended the escapist natter of contemporary, manufactured pop music.

Some of that crossover appeal might be explained by their outsider status. None of these artists had ever produced music that sounded like this in any of their other projects. They had all cut their teeth working with guitars and angst, traditional tools of the indie-rock trade. Doherty’s longest-tenured job came as a member of post-punk Scottish shoegazers The Twlight Sad, a band best known for their dense, “ear-splitting” live performances. Mayberry still looks to Nirvana for inspiration. Attend a Chvrches show and you’ll see glimmers of those origins more readily than in their polished studio recordings.

“It might be difficult to tell,” Cook said in an interview with The Scotsman, “but I think there are still elements of what we’ve done before in the music we’re making now. But the arrangements and the instrumentation, and the focus on catchy melodies and stuff, I guess that’s new for us.”

The Mother We Share

In an era where buzz for synth-pop bands expands and bursts in the time it takes to blow an unimpressive bubble, Chvrches’ spire stands taller because they backed those “catchy” melodies and immaculate hooks with explosive catharsis. Iain Cook’s finely tuned production on The Bones of What You Believe hasn’t strangled the album of individualism; rather, he’s given each song a chance to breathe, creating a rollercoaster of processed effects and synth-pad cadences, thereby emulating the ebb and flow of human emotion.

“And when it all fucks up, you put your head in my hands / It’s a souvenir for when you go-o-o-oh,” Mayberry sings on “The Mother We Share,” the album’s deceptively nuanced opening volley, a song that might have been classified as a disposable confection if not for her willingness to embrace fragility. She calls attention to a darker side of euphoria – the pain of consciously and irreparably discarding an essential part of your whole. This naturalistic alliance between levity and despair runs throughout The Bones of What You Believe. Cook and Doherty’s pulsing and atmospheric throwback musicality balanced by Mayberry’s grounded sincerity. Cook even shouted out 1980’s horror movie scores – Charles’ Bernstein’s The Nightmare on Elm Street in particular – as a primary source of inspiration.

We Sink

At the height of her powers on a peppy but vengeful track like “We Sink,” Lauren Mayberry possesses a relatable range that empowers her simple, emotive lyrics. In the ideal soundscape, her shortcomings as a songwriter attain potency beyond the burnished letters on the page. Depeche Mode’s primary wordsmith Martin Gore, who once called happy songs “fake and unrealistic,” serves as a direct antecedent.

Having opened for Depeche Mode early in their career, Chvrches serves as an extension of that same dual-minded ambition: anthemic and orchestral electronic music. And even though you might occasionally mistake catchy for “happy” on The Bones of What You Believe, Gore likely approves of the album’s scarcity of bliss. Mayberry has even credited Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan for teaching her how to command a stage – something she struggled with early on, as her initial presence failed to rival the self-assurance of Chvrches’ recordings.  

On “Gun,” “Recover” and “By the Throat” the band displays an outsized confidence in pacing and patience. This ability to dial back the cacophony before reaching a swelling dénouement would become more apparent on tracks found on their later records such as “Clearest Blue.” Here, however, the results feel less deliberate – each successive element inspired by the urgency of the individual moment.

Tether

The greatest example of this occurs on the lesser celebrated “Tether,” a song about emerging scarred but unbroken from a destructive relationship. It begins with a repetitive, understated guitar riff backing Mayberry’s lyrics.

“Trade our places / take no chances / bind me ‘til my lips are silent” she sings as the song’s urgency increases. Just beyond the two-minute mark, when you expect the individual components to unify, the bottom falls out for thirty seconds, leaving little more than a static hum. “I feel incapable of / Seeing the end / I feel incapable of / Saying it’s over,” she repeats. Synth and drum machine ascend and merge into one. The guitar returns, creating narrative agency and releasing the burden of hopelessness. It’s a moment perfected in the best work by a complex sonic craftsman like M83 – hardly territory covered in a self-produced debut record.

While Chvrches has often been hailed as a band made by blogger hype, the description often suggests condescension, as if success fell into their lap. All three members paid industry dues before their instant chemistry forged a creative partnership that’s proven that they’re more than just another ephemeral synth-pop sensation. Bands toil throughout their entire careers to produce one song as resonant as the twelve on The Bones of What You Believe. It takes a lot of work to be that lucky. Chvrches may not have blazed new trails, but they resuscitated the beautiful, soulful heartbeat within electronic music. That singular sound, an assemblage of discarded elements, breathed new life into an increasingly droll independent landscape.