Magdalena Bay on the Songs They Want to Soundtrack Their Funeral
The synth-pop seekers get existential while talking about communing with the music of Billy Joel, John Coltrane, ELO, and more.
Existential Playlist is an interview series where artists tell us about the music they want played at their own memorial service, delving into some of life’s biggest questions along the way.
The Magdalena Bay experience is akin to putting on a cheap alien costume, downing some potent psychedelics, and then staring into a mirror covered in fake blood for approximately three days straight. The Los Angeles duo dreams up aesthetic playgrounds that are heady and bizarre. Synthetic and fleshy. Frivolous and profound. Retro and future. And they pull it all off with a handmade panache rooted in prog rock’s 1970s heyday, when Peter Gabriel fronted Genesis while looking like a cross between a magician and a flower.
On Imaginal Disk, one of 2024’s most adventurous pop records, they presented a loose, freaky concept in which frontwoman Mica Tenenbaum upgrades her consciousness by inserting a CD into her forehead—literally, as seen on the album’s incredible cover, as well as at the end of the video for “Death & Romance,” in which an evil doctor with a craggy star for a head cuts her open and pops in the disk. See for yourself:
Mica and her partner Matt Lewin are unafraid to tackle the biggest topics known to humankind—like the meaning of life and death and aliens—in a way that’s both earnest and fun. Their music boldly wades into existential territory, so we thought they would be perfect for our new Existential Playlist series, in which artists tell us what songs they want played at their funeral. We’re thinking of this series not as a morbid exercise so much as a shortcut to deep conversation and weird jokes. (And to be clear, we want Mica and Matt to lead long, rich lives!)
Sitting next to each other on their couch in L.A., the duo is more than up to the challenge. Naturally, they approach the interview with a conceptual bent. “We thought of our funeral soundtracks less literally and more as a stylized experience,” says Mica, as her dog Wolfie licks her face. Matt adds, “You don’t want it to be too morbid or too lighthearted. It needs to fit this wistful state, where it would feel right.”
As they talk about their individual choices, they can’t help but giggle at the absurdity of the conversation—and, perhaps, of life itself. They also introduce more self-imposed rules along the way. “The lyrics have to be exactly on theme, or so vague that you can’t tell what it’s about, or it should be an instrumental,” Mica decides, “because the attention has to be on me.”
