An Interview With Magana: The Creative Journey Behind Her New EP 'Bad News'

A conversation with Magana, on her new EP 'Bad News'.

By Chris RoditisMusicngear Lead Editor

Article photo - An Interview With Magana: The Creative Journey Behind Her New EP 'Bad News'


Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist Magana returns with Bad News, her latest EP blending warmth and lyrical intimacy into what she calls “Cozy Core Winter Pop.'

In our conversation, we explore the EP’s connection to her earlier releases, her creative journey balancing multiple artistic outlets, the importance of self-care amidst a demanding schedule, and more.
 

Chris Roditis, Musicngear: Your latest EP, 'Bad News', has been described as “Cozy Core Winter Pop.” How did you arrive at this unique sound, and what does the term “Cozy Core” mean to you? 

Article photo - An Interview With Magana: The Creative Journey Behind Her New EP 'Bad News' To me, cozy core is the feeling of laying under a mountain of blankets. Or a blanket fort with a lot of pillows. You get the idea. It's not about doing or changing but rather becoming comfortable in the space that you currently exist in.

Instead of wishing it wasn't so cold out, we start a fire and have some tea. And instead of wishing things were different in our lives, we write or listen to songs about it. 


You’ve mentioned that this EP is part of an interconnected trio of releases. Could you tell us more about how it ties in with 'Teeth' and 'Dreams'?

Yes! So Teeth was released in the spring and it is the epitome of change and exploration. For that album, I combined two branches of my interests: songwriting and ambient music. I'm proud of the result, but that doesn't mean that I stop exploring those interests separately. It's kind of like how the pilot of the series introduces a general plot structure and if the show gets picked up they spend several episodes exploring each facet of that plot.

DREAMS was released in the fall and was the ambient exploration. There was no singing, but rather a series of field recordings centering around rest and sleep.

We are now fully in winter and not yet entering spring, and this is the time where we start to germinate seeds. We take stock of where we are in our lives and what we want to bring with us next spring and what we want to leave behind. This is the singer-songwriter exploration. These songs were all written with guitar and voice and the focus shifts to the lyrics for this release. 

 

You’ve had an impressive career balancing solo projects, collaborations, and session work. What has been the most defining moment in your musical journey so far? 

I appreciate this question because otherwise, I'm not sure that I would remember to look at my musical journey as a whole.

I'm used to constantly focusing on what is ahead. Even so, I'm not sure that I know what to point to and say this moment defined me. Parallel to my life as a whole, I suppose, I think my defining moments were small unnoticeable events. 


Article photo - An Interview With Magana: The Creative Journey Behind Her New EP 'Bad News'

 

You’ve described Bad News as lyrically driven and stripped back. Were there any specific instruments or gear that were essential in achieving its intimate sound? 

Although you might not hear it all the time, acoustic guitar was the main player here. I wrote all the main parts on acoustic. Even the first track which is clarinet driven started with that part on acoustic guitar. 

 

As a multi-instrumentalist, do you have a particular process for deciding which instrument takes the lead in a track? 

It's something I've been experimenting with starting with the making of Teeth. Previously I wrote guitar parts and then sort of made the arrangement around that existing track. But now I'm a little better at picking out what the important parts are from the line, and that can be transferred to any instrument.

For recording, I generally start by imagining an overall sound and then choose whatever instrument I think will get us there. It's like cooking. I taste it and think, oh that needs more of a bottom or oh I can't pick out any individual flavors. There's too much going on. 

 

Your work spans genres from Witchy Rock to Cozy Core. Does your gear setup change significantly with each style, or do you maintain a core set of tools?

I'm basically working with the same core set of tools for all the releases. There are some wild-sounding synths or field recordings floating around but any of the songs can generally be replicated on an acoustic guitar to a similar effect.

There might be an exception in DREAMS which is sort of all soundscapes. 


Do you have any favorite pieces of gear that you can’t live without, whether on the road or in the studio?

I think I could get most anything done with a keyboard that also has midi. It doesn't even have to be a big one. 

 

As both a photographer and musician, how do these two creative outlets influence each other? Does visual art ever inspire your sound, or vice versa? 

Yeah, I really think all art is from the same place, and so only inspires other art.

That being said, I generally go through phases of being more into one than the other. 

 

You’ve released three projects in under a year - a monumental feat! What keeps you creatively inspired and prevents burnout with such a demanding schedule?

Article photo - An Interview With Magana: The Creative Journey Behind Her New EP 'Bad News' Thank you! Learning something new is always inspiring to me. So finding a way to rearrange a song or trying to learn a new recording style or whatever really is the thing that keeps me active.

As for preventing burnout...I'm not gonna lie, at the end of 2024, I totally burned out. I had a busy year, and there was a lot of stuff at the end that I really just couldn't imagine missing out on so I tried to do it all. I continuously kept getting sick with these mysterious symptoms and was tired and stressed all the time. 

I just want to be honest so that people don't look at the things I'm doing and think, "This is how I should be living my life!" I went a little too hard and paid the price. Some of that is just scheduling. Looking back, I'm still happy that I said yes to all the big things that I did, even if I was miserable for a good portion of those things.

But also a lot of my overcommitments are little things that I absolutely made myself sick over. So going forward, I'm being a bit more conscious of leaving space for myself. Even with releasing an album, Audio Antihero has been great about letting me pick and choose which press items I'm going to work on. It may or may not make a smaller splash with the release, but what's important is I'm still going to be able to perform and write and won't be a sad sick mess huddled on my bedroom floor. 


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Listen to Bad News

About Chris Roditis

Chris Roditis has been an active musician since 1995 in various bands and projects across a variety of genres ranging from acoustic, electronic to nu metal, british rock and trip hop. He has extensive experience as a mixing engineer and producer and has built recording studios for most of the projects he has been involved with. His passion for music steered his entrepreneurial skills into founding MusicNGear in 2012.

Contact Chris Roditis at chrisroditis@kinkl.com

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In this section of the blog we host interviews with established but also up and coming artists we love and recommend as well as music industry professionals with tons of useful information to share.

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