Imaginal Disk

Imaginal Disk is a testament to good old-fashioned artistry – it’s the product of a band intensely honing what they want to sound like and ending up with a style so unique that it’s barely possible to describe. It’s dorky and strange and dramatic, like the duo themselves. And it sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard.

At every turn, Imaginal Disk is ambitious and forward-thinking, but in the midst of all of Magdalena Bay’s playful self-styled performance art, they also manage to deliver one of the year’s most rewarding pop albums.

They’re a pop act with a rockist core, but their insertions of prog, shoegaze, or even disco never feel done in a way that suggests pop is lesser without it, but adds muscularity to their music. This balance isn’t an easy one to find, but having done so with Imaginal Disk just acts as yet another flex.

With Imaginal Disk, Magdalena Bay straddle pop worlds, bringing together a maximalist dance club atmosphere and ecstasy-laced, burning Wicker Man euphoria, all filtered through a dial-up computer dream of the pop future.

The album is bookended by a musical motif, a deceptively simple approach that proves that, despite its seemingly arbitrary twists and turns, the lengthy and ambitious Imaginal Disk is in fact heading somewhere.

Since their inception in 2016, Magdalena Bay have made aqueous internet pop and low-voltage funk full of pinwheeling arpeggios and inside jokes. Imaginal Disk sounds like that, but bigger and punchier—more keyboards! More percussion tracks! Add a string section!! Synth harp!!! The total effect brings to mind ’90s Madchester, the progression of Tame Impala after Lonerism, and peak CD sonics.