For the first time, Magdalena Bay is traveling from show to show on a tour bus.
The electro-pop band, made up of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, is caught up in the second tour for their sophomore album, “Imaginal Disk,” released Aug. 2024. They first toured last fall, and the 2025 leg includes dates across the country, including California’s Lightning in a Bottle and Wonderfront, plus shows in Europe. Additionally, they’re opening for Billie Eilish’s London shows in July. But, at the moment, they’re thinking about how much a “real-deal tour bus” has improved their touring experience.
“It’s kind of a game changer for us where we’re actually sleeping and have a lot more time to relax,” Lewin tells Variety over Zoom alongside Tenenbaum from Cleveland.
The duo is touring on the back of “Imaginal Disk,” an album replete with maximalist production and anchored by glossy melodies. On stage, Tenenbaum embodies True, the album’s main character, who exists in a sci-fi world where people get CD-ROMs slid into their foreheads to initiate a process of self-optimization. The singer sports blue face makeup as she and Lewin perform against a playful, fantastical backdrop that includes a portal.
To outside observers, the band is building an exciting momentum that includes the song “Image,” which went somewhat viral on TikTok. Online, they resonate with a particular Gen-Z audience, who latch onto the band’s bubbly, intelligent and experimental sound, as well as their dreamlike music videos.
But Tenenbaum and Lewin, who grew up in Miami and met in high school, haven’t had the time to take stock. “It’s interesting because we’ve kind of just been mainly playing shows since then,” says Tenenbaum. “But it’s cool because we see that the shows are getting bigger and that more people are coming and that we’re able to have a bus.”
The response to the album has grown organically between the band’s first and second tour. “The energy around the ‘Imaginal Disk’ songs is a lot more intense now, and I think that’s because people have had more time to kind of live with the music,” Tenenbaum says.
When describing their live performance style, Lewin and Tenenbaum both reference theater. The band’s process of translating their sound for the stage is to approach it “almost like a Broadway musical.” The stage design and costumes are pulled from the rainbow-colored aesthetic world of the band’s music videos. The effect is “some sort of hybrid between a rock show and a weird theater play,” says Tenenbaum.
“Imaginal Disk” is a testament to the duo’s approach to world-building. The title originates from a concept called “imaginal disc”: “It has to do with when the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, there is this blueprint for itself,” says Tenenbaum. “And even though the caterpillar gets melted down and rearranged and recreated through the use of these imaginal discs, it still is the same.”
The pair discovered that concept as they were writing songs that thematically centered around an “exploration of self,” and transplanted the idea onto humans. “It just raises a lot of questions about what you are as an individual and how the concept of self is defined, even as you go through so many changes,” says Lewin.
The lyrics remain open-ended and don’t necessarily contain a narrative, Tenenbaum notes. “But for the visual world, we’ve overlaid this story over the album lyrics, and that’s True’s story. She’s this alien version of me.”
The songs variously explore universal qualities that define humanity, such as love in all its forms, time and how uniquely anxiety-inducing it is for humans, as well as the idea of self-optimization. “Image” touches on the latter subject in “this sleek pop, a little sci-fi way,” Tenenbaum says. “It is about trying to perfect and optimize and rectify all these flaws that you know do make us human. So it’s kind of like an impossible exercise.”
The duo was surprised when “Image” gained momentum on TikTok, and that it’s translated to listeners exploring more of their catalog. Magdalena Bay had a previous viral moment with their 2020 song “Killshot.” Yet, Tenenbaum notes that song was a “special case because of the context in which it’s viral, which is generally for edits and fan cams.” With “Image” on the other hand, “a lot of the content I’ve seen is just kind of about our music and the album, which is great. There’s dances for it but…” Lewin chimes in: “It’s not a trend.”
This summer, Magdalena Bay is set to open for Eilish, marking the band’s first time playing arenas. They’re ready for the challenge. “It’s a really cool fit and a really cool, huge artist to be opening for,” Tenenbaum says. The band members acknowledge the enthusiasm their loved ones have for their musical journey.
“Our parents and our families and our sisters are all just super excited about everything, even more than us. Definitely more than us,” Lewin says. “They’re sort of seeing things from afar, and they’re just like, ‘Are you guys so excited’?”
Tenenbaum concurs: “We’re like ‘Yeah, yeah, we gotta go do this.’”
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