Imaginal Disk, Not a Concept Album, an Album With a Concept

By Megan Butler

Art by Kiran Slomka

This Miami duo, Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, now based in LA released their sixth album this August. Imaginal Disk is an indie cyber album that somehow feels older than it is, as I can place the many parts of their sound, through their inspirations from artists like Charli XCX, Grimes, Bjork, and The Beatles.

The album title itself is a play on the Imaginal disc—an entomology term describing a sac-like structure inside an insect that becomes the defining body parts of the bug after metamorphosis. Magdalena Bay uses this idea to create an album concept of an alternative universe in which: Aliens implant imaginal discs into primates to create a higher consciousness. The album artwork reflects a literal disk being inserted into Tenebaum’s forehead, playing with the word “disc” and turning it into a symbolic object similar to a microchip. This album follows True, the idealized version of Tenebaum’s Self, who’s body rejects the imaginal disc allowing True to find what it means to be human. Although, neither artist chose to label this as a concept album. All the music could live and thrive without the overarching storyline.

The opening song, “She Looked Like Me!” features Tenenbaum’s light nasally vocals and breathy pronunciation (which reminds me a little of Cyndi Lauper) as she faces her ideal self. She introduces the idea of a mirror (also featured in the song “Image”) and through it she's watching the life of her better self getting married and having children. When she comes face to face with this version of herself, she sings “She shot at me like an Earthbound bullet…. And I felt love.” 

Through the “True Blue Interlude” provides a brief window into the implanting moment itself. Tenenbaum sings, “Say hello, it's you, the purest you” like a subliminal message for a new self, a better one, the self after insertion.

“Killing Time” and “Love is Everywhere” are the fullest songs of this album—each with their own funky twist. “Killing Time” builds off of bass and percussion; every other instrument is just an added bonus, building a galactic feeling, like floating in space. “Love is Everywhere” throws down an Anderson .Paak-like bassline and combines it with bouncy verses that Coco & Clair Clair would approve of. 

“Angel on a Satellite” is a stand out track on this record. The pre-chorus is so strangely familiar, toppling over like the soundtrack of first season Greys Anatomy, which puts this album in the same circle as the Cults self-titled album. It's cinematic and hearty, and just experimental enough. 

The last song “The Ballad of Matt & Mica” is a revisiting of the opener, yet it feels like a celebration upbeat and filled with cheers until the last ten seconds of organs eerily let the listener go. Although the lyrics have slightly changed: “She Looked Like Me!” ends on the word “ordinary” as “The Ballad of Matt & Mica” ends on the words “not ordinary.” The answer to her search of what it means to be human ends with unknowing.