A Heart Is A Spade Interview: Magmana

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1. How would you describe Magmana’s sound in twenty words or less?

It is folk music, but more strange, textured and neurotic.

2. What can you reveal about your forthcoming debut album?

Well, we can’t wait to share it. Last year we quit our other bands to focus entirely on Magmana. We went into a creative cocoon together and wrote something like 35 songs but narrowed it down to 12. A lot of our music is about making contact with something otherly in yourself based on a feeling, an image, an event, an idea you experienced that dismantled you in some way and then following that into a space where you can find a song. This album is about full exploration of intuition and craft – writing that is overall fairly dark, nuanced, and even a bit comedic. We really love how the songs work together too. They are pretty different from one another – some having been long labors and then there is one track that is an avant-garde first take, which at first seemed frightening to use, but it just worked. We were really devoted to making decisions that captured the truest spirit of the songs. We have been making homemade recordings for some time and released a group of songs in 2009. This is our first full-length. We still did a lot of the recordings at home for this record, but also had a proper studio and some amazing engineers working with us this time around who really understood what we were going for. Despite our most evolved production to date, there is still a less-is-more approach evident in the tracks. That kind of texture feels more intimate to us, and the songs are ultimately very intimate.

3. Can you kindly list a few dream collaborators?

PJ Harvey, Jon Brion, Thurston Moore, David Byrne, Meg Baird, Patti Smith, Smog, Espers, Nick Cave, Yo La Tengo, Low.

4. What’s the greatest pop song of all time?

‘Another One Bites The Dust’ by Queen.

5. What do you have in store for the second half of 2012?

Performing as much as possible. Writing more music.

MP3: Magmana – In Hawaii