Thirteen seconds in, Magana’s ‘To My Love’ opens a portal to the last time I visited New York, or some sentimental bone buried in my childhood backyard. I’m reminded of the moment in that modern classic, Barbie, when the eponymous hero’s creator tells her to feel.
What does she do? Touch, and breathe.
I have no hand here to hold but my own, so let the air caress me in lieu of a lover.
(And the music. Music will embrace us when nothing else can or will.)
Magana says/sings, “I know you’re sorry.” How does she know? To whom does she sing? All the lovers, present and past, or someone particular? I have a specific ex in mind for every sad song I write, and wonder if Magana is the same.
Is she alone? Is she happy? Both?
I’m getting Azure Ray flashbacks (If You Fall), and more contemporary tickles of Washington, Babygirl, Lana Del Ray. This is sad girl gold. This is what it means to live- and feel.
I hit the link. I click play. I breathe.
I feel.
Still riding (or drowning under) Valentine’s rough wave, this song helps me come up for air. It’s a relief to discover another artist keeping pop indie and alt and raw, the ones who put the emo in dreamo, the ones who crack open your soul.
We’re delighted to offer you the first chance to hear ‘To My Love’ from Magana’s new LP Teeth below. Scroll a little further for Magana’s answers to our ten questions…
What do you love about music?
I love that it supersedes words. It can change a whole mood just with some noises in the background of a movie. And then you can add words that either go along with the feel or give contrast with a feel. The possibilities are endless. I love that it speaks to everyone, even though it’ll say something different to each person. That it will keep you company at your most joyous and at your worst moments.
What do you want your listeners to feel?
I want listeners to feel seen. I don’t want people to be sad because I was sad, or happy because I was happy. I know that my life experiences colour my perspectives, and those remain unique to me. So in my wildest dreams, a small part of a song will resonate with the person listening to it. We might be talking about totally different things, but they’ll go “yeah, me too.” And maybe it’ll make them feel hopeful when I had felt hopeless, or be a small comfort when they need it most. And maybe it’ll keep them company in some of their worst and best moments, too.
Who is your foremost contemporary inspiration?
Bon Iver inspires me, because so much of what they have been working on recently feels like exploration, and that is sort of the phase of life I’m in now.
Who is your foremost old school inspiration?
This is going very old school, but Chopin. There’s a feeling that I’m after in a lot of my music that exists in much of his work. It’s technical, but nuanced. And there’s so much room for emotions to fit in the movement between major and minor, tensions and resolutions.
I really dig that, in a lot of your promo shots, your face is obscured. Any particular reason for doing so?
Thanks for noticing my work! It isn’t fully planned out that way. I just think facial expressions can be limiting sometimes. Not always! They’re like adding lyrics to music. It makes a photo say something very specific, even if the expression is mysterious. By removing some of that, it can have a broader meaning. Or obscuring half of the face can say something different. I tend to go for those when doing single covers and promo photos because I don’t want to add any more colouring to the song.
Which would you rather listeners pay the most attention to: the melody, or the lyrics?
What matters to me is how they fit together. Melody and lyrics need each other in order to complete the picture I want to paint. I think of it like inflection. The way you say the same sentence can mean something totally different based on how you say it. And while you can sometimes get your point across with just inflections, it’s much easier to say a nuanced meaning using words.
If you could get any person, living or dead, to listen to your music, who would you choose?
I really want people that know me personally to listen to my music. I deeply feel that there’s a large part of me I’m not always able to express to people. Even those that I love. But I sit alone in my little office and make things out of those feelings and then I put them into the world. I don’t even care if they like it, I just think it helps them know me a little better.
Who or what inspired your single, ‘To My Love’?
I started writing about it while I was thinking about a fight my husband and I had on a vacation in Portugal. Like a lot of fights, it wasn’t really about anything other than that we seemed to be in vastly different spaces and couldn’t find our way to understanding each other. I remembered the feeling of wanting so badly to be on the other side of this giant chasm, but feeling so wrapped up in my own story that I couldn’t figure out how to get there. I honestly think that’s the root of a lot of problems between people. So it started there, in a very literal memory, but morphed into a more general statement about relationships with other people.
What are you most proud of when you listen to ‘To My Love’?
This song went through so many stages of production. I wrote it with just very simple guitar chords. And I tracked it and then added stuff and then thought this song would be a throwaway because of its literal lyrics and simple chords. Because I was absolutely not going to put it on the record, it became this sort of experiment that I got to work on to see what else I could throw at it. And with that freedom, I think it ended up being one of the coolest sonic stories on the record. I’m especially proud of that because it feels like the ethos I’m trying to embody right now – finding the freedom to experiment and see where it leads. I want to give a shout out to my husband who played the drums on this. He came up with this sort of unexpected part that I think saved it from the demo pile.
How does this single compare to previous releases? Where are you headed musically?
This single definitely aligns music and lyrics in a more purposeful way than some of my other releases. Before this, it was more about fitting my words into an already established sonic palette. I wrote songs on the guitar, and I played them on guitar. I explored the sonic boundaries of my last album with the guitar. I added things to it and shifted other things around but I clearly had a focus on one instrument being the line drawn throughout the record. This time I had everything at my fingertips and focusing on one instrument became sort of irrelevant to me. I have so many paths I want to take now, one of which is exploring the more ambient side of my writing. That’s probably what is next.
‘To My Love’ is taken from Magana’s new album Teeth, released via Audio Anithero / Colored Pencils on 25th March – pre-order via Bandcamp
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Words & Interview by C E Hoffman
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