I chatted with Magana last May when she released an album called Teeth. Now she’s back with a follow-up EP titled Bad News. Clearly the artist is on a roll, so let’s just get straight into the interview…

Your new EP is called Bad News. What’s the bad news you’re sharing?

Don’t worry, I’m not sharing bad news! The bad news is coming to the characters in each song as they realize there are areas in their lives that they would like to change.

Does it have a silver lining?

I honestly believe just about everything has a silver lining. The silver lining in these songs is that change is possible for anyone. That just because something happens in our lives doesn’t mean our lives are destined to go a certain way. 

Your press materials describe the EP as “cozy core.” How would you describe that genre? Who are some other artists who fit into that category?

One time I was on tour in Sweden in the fall and was asking a local about what winter is like. I already struggle with winter and the days get so short there. They insisted it was great and enlightened me to the concept of vintermys. Taking comfort in the coziness of winter. Think fires, warm blankets, hot chocolate with friends. That’s the genre that this EP falls into. It’s a tad bit melancholy, but there’s beauty and comfort in that. There’s time to slow down and reflect. I think The National falls under this genre. Or Phoebe Bridgers. Cozy core shares a lot of overlap with indie folk. 

It’s also described as “Winter Pop.” What makes it wintery?

On a recent trip to Boston, I took in a walk through the woods as it was snowing. The snow that had already fallen blanketed the bushes and ground and the only noise was the crunching of my boots. Even though I knew there was so much life underneath the snow, everything was white and still and silent. This album is wintery because it is about stillness. Each song represents a moment in time before a change. But the winter is not the culmination of growth. This is where the seeds of change begin to germinate, and they will grow in the spring. Now we use these songs to stop and reflect and sit with. 

Bad News is your third solo release within ten months, following a three-year stretch where you didn’t release anything. What accounts for the sudden burst of creativity?

Bad news is the third release in what I consider the Teeth trilogy. These songs were mostly written and recorded in the same period of time, and released in the order I thought made the most sense. Teeth was released in spring, and the album was about growth and exploration. It was the culmination of the two things that I was exploring at the time: soundscapes and songwriting. DREAMS was released in the fall, a time for changing of the seasons. The focus for me there was mostly for soundscapes. And now, Bad News will be released later in winter. Just before the change of spring. The focus here is the songwriting. 

I was lucky enough to be able to record all these songs more or less in a bedroom, which enabled me to release so much material in a short amount of time. I know that mostly anyone can put music online these days which is awesome. But I think that I have a specific privilege to be able to record things myself and to be married to a drummer and mix engineer and to have so much help and support from my label and all my friends. I bet if other people had this specific setup, you’d see a lot more material from them as well. 

That being said, I don’t have any more surprise releases up my sleeve. I think this music made the statement I wanted to make, and I’m satisfied to go back to the drawing board for the next album. 

How is Bad News different from some of your previous offerings?

It’s particularly exciting for me to consider this question because I think it shows the growth I’ve gone through as an artist. “Bad News” is a bit more stripped of the adventurous sound backgrounds than my other recent releases. I think of it as a return to the space I was in when I made my first solo EP in 2016. But I think that going through the period of time experimenting with new methods has fundamentally changed me and that you’ll always be able to hear a piece of that in the music I make going forward. 

How have you evolved as an artist over the past year?

Looking back at my work is fun because I’m able to sort of pinpoint what I was obsessing over at each phase. There was the guitar phase, and there was the synth mania, and a short period of time where I put vocoder on everything (you can hear it in the last track on this EP). I built walls of sound, gathering tools and tricks as I went. Now I’m working on doing more with less. I want to utilize the tools I have more effectively. I was really influenced working with my pal Emily Moore in pen pin these past couple years. She’s a pro at finding the most important elements in a song. 

You’re also incredibly busy, working as bassist/backing vocalist for Mitski and one-half of the pop duo pen pin. How do you find time to do it all?

Honestly I’m very tired. I think the reason I’m so excited to be putting out a record about stillness and winter is because all I want to do is sit under a blanket and reflect and process everything that I’ve been doing and feeling over this past year. 

Can you talk a little bit about pen pin? How would you describe that project, and how is it different from your solo work?

Would love to! I started my solo project because I was making these songs and had these ideas and wanted a place to put them. The music reflects me as a person and I’m so happy about that. But I’m also multi-faceted, and so it’s a delight to be able to work on music that showcases another side of who I am. It’s about friendship and finding joy in the moments where you can. I think you’d listen to pen pin when you wanna dance or walk on the beach in the morning, and you’d listen to Magana when the sun goes down. 

I started this project with my friend Emily Moore who has a fantastic solo project as well called Total Brutal. I think we balance each other out in life and music in a way that makes something new out of our individual personalities, and this band celebrates that. 

What’s on the horizon for you?

Maybe some sleep! No but really, I have a lot of directions I want to go and I’m not sure which will come next. At the moment I’m taking the “Bad News” advice and just sitting still in this moment. I’m sure I’ll figure out what to do next when the sun comes back out.