# Mercurial World

Mercurial World is the debut studio album by the American musical duo Magdalena Bay, released on October 8, 2021, through Luminelle Recordings. Developed for two years, Mercurial World was written, produced, and recorded by both members of the duo, the vocalist Mica Tenenbaum and the multi-instrumentalist Matthew Lewin. The 14-track album draws mainly from synth-pop and electronic pop, with predominant synthesizers and drums. Lyrically, the album centers on a theory about the passage of time and existence, while also leaning to themes of relationships, technology, and evolution.
Four singles—"Chaeri", "Secrets (Your Fire)", "You Lose!", and "Hysterical Us"—accompanied Mercurial World along with music videos for all four and the album track "Dreamcatching". The conceptual visuals incorporated retro and Y2K aesthetics. To further promote the album, Magdalena Bay embarked on their first headlining concert tour, the Mercurial Tour, and performed at other events.
Upon its release, Mercurial World received mostly positive reviews from music critics; some of them praised its production and style, while the less enthusiastic reviewers criticized the lyricism. Commercially, the album reached two secondary Billboard charts in the United States. A 28-track deluxe edition was released on September 23, 2022; supported by three singles, it included remixes by Cecile Believe and Danny L Harle, as well as fan-made voicemails.

## Background and development

The vocalist Mica Tenenbaum and the multi-instrumentalist Matthew Lewin first met at the age of 15 playing music in different bands at a concert organized for their after-school music program. Tenenbaum then joined Lewin's group, the progressive rock band Tabula Rasa, which was influenced by the bands Yes, Genesis, and King Crimson. Following the releases of two albums, they disbanded when the members finished college. Tenenbaum and Lewin then reconnected with the goal of making pop music, inspired by several musicians including Fiona Apple, St. Vincent, and Grimes. In 2016, Tenenbaum and Lewin formed the duo Magdalena Bay and released the single "Voc Pop". Two years later, they moved to an apartment in Los Angeles, where they recorded music videos in a green screen. After releasing several singles and extended plays (EPs) with a DIY approach, they gained a cult following among pop fans, and signed a recording contract with Luminelle Recordings. Their EP A Little Rhythm and a Wicked Feeling was released on March 13, 2020; it was planned to be promoted by a series of concerts supporting the bands Kero Kero Bonito and Yumi Zouma, before they were cancelled due to the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Following the cancellation of the tour, Magdalena Bay decided to start working on their debut full-length studio album, recording together in their home studio which "immersed [them] in [their] creative, insular universe" and contributed to album's "particular sense of madness in containment". Lewin was suspended from his job and had time to "to just focus on music". In mid-2020, they listed all the songs they had written for the album, along with their themes. They noticed that the songs were mainly about observing the passage of time and feeling overwhelmed by the universe. In an interview with Vulture's Justin Curto, Tenenbaum stated that it was a subconscious pattern. The album title was decided to be Mercurial World after writing the eponymous song, because the duo felt that it "sums up" the themes present on all the tracks. They also said that most of the album was a result to their quarter-life crisis.

## Composition
### Overview

Magdalena Bay entirely wrote, produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered Mercurial World. The standard edition of the album contains 14 tracks. Musically, it is a synth-pop and electronic pop album, with influences of several genres including psychedelia, disco, electronica, EDM, and hyperpop. It is also inspired by 1980 and 1990s pop music. By the time of Mercurial World's release, Lewin stated that they were "figuring out what Magdalena Bay sounds like". Its production predominantly includes synthesizers, drum beats, and pop hooks, while also drawing from rock guitars and easy listening piano. The hooks of several songs are low-energy and mid-tempo. The album was influenced by the indie pop bands MGMT and Chvrches, as well as the musicians Grimes, Charli XCX, and Caroline Polachek. Matt Colar of AllMusic compared Tenenbaum's "baby-voice" to the singer Kate Bush. Writing for PopMatters, Rob Moura found similarities with Art Angels (2015) by Grimes, the bubblegum of Kero Kero Bonito, the strings and piano of Future Nostalgia (2020) by the singer Dua Lipa, and the works of the project M83.
Lyrically, the album's main theme is the passage of time, while also leaning to relationships issues, stress about the future, technology, and evolution. The album focuses on an abstract theory described by Tenenbaum: "If there's nothingness before you're born and nothingness after you die, it creates kind of a meeting point here, and life creates the circle of what goes around that, so in that way, there is no end". The duo mentioned Fiona Apple as an influence for their songwriting, after Lewin grew up listening to her and Tenenbaum discovered her through him as a teenager. About the influences on the album, Lewin said that he and Tenenbaum "processed them and then, hopefully, turned them into something that [they] feel is more representative" of the duo.

### Songs

"The End" is the opening track from Mercurial World, which is a PC Music song in which Tenenbaum wonders if an end exists. It interpolates Madonna's "Material Girl" (1985). The album starts and finishes with a loop by a curtain call that connects the first to the last track, "The Beginning". About that topic, the duo stated that they have "made this moment eternal" and that "it's like the music itself becomes the answer to the question". The title track and "Dawning of the Season" are synth-pop songs with pop key changes. In the latter, the duo deals with insecurities and curing anxiety with body movement. "Secrets (Your Fire)" is a yacht rock song made by synthesizers, guitars, and a 1970s-infused funk bassline. It was influenced by the singers Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears, and the disco band Chic; according to the magazine Under the Radar, it is also reminiscent to the production of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" (1995). As explained by Magdalena Bay, the lyrics are centered on "digital anxiety", dealing with the over-sharing online and the duo's desire for privacy. The upbeat fifth track, "You Lose!", was categorized by critics as pop rock and noise pop. It is led by chiptune, and contains playground chants, guitars, and gaming samples over Tenenbaum's breathy vocals. It emphasizes on a failed relationship, with sound effects indicating a game over. The following track, "Something for 2", is made by electronic beats.
The seventh track on Mercurial World, the synth-pop and progressive house song "Chaeri", focuses on mental health and friendships, detailing the feeling of abandoning a friend with mental health problems. Its electro dance beat was compared to the singer Robyn by The Line of Best Fit's Olivia Swash. The duo was inspired to create the song after watching Uncut Gems (2019), and listening to Gigi D'Agostino's "L'amour toujours" (2000), the single featured in the film. The existential eighth track, titled "Halfway", contains bleeps and synthesizers, while "Hysterical Us" has elements of bubblegum pop and synth-rock, and lyrics about anxiety and paranoia. The lyrical content of "Prophecy" and "Follow the Leader" represents a search for meaning; the former is a baroque pop ballad, while the latter contains robotic vocals and electronic instrumentals, and was seen by Katherine St. Asaph of Pitchfork as similar to a remix of Beyoncé's "Party" (2011). "Domino" contains "scratchy" guitars reminiscent to Night Time, My Time (2013) by the singer Sky Ferreira, as remarked by Ben Cohn from Beats Per Minute. "Dreamcatching" is a hyperpop song where Tenenbaum's soprano voice expresses the desire to explore the world with a partner. Cohn also compared "The Beginning" to "Boys" (2008) by the singer-songwriter Ashlee Simpson. "The Beginning" closes the album with a dissolved voice of Tenenbaum whispering "Matt, Matt". The album is an infinite loop, starting with the same whispers before shouting, "Wake up."

### Deluxe edition

The deluxe edition adds 14 more tracks. It provides previously unreleased songs that were discarded from the original track listing, remixes and alternative versions of album tracks, and voicemails from fans dubbed as "secrets". Magdalena Bay wanted the deluxe edition to have "its own concept and flow to it, but [to feel] separate from the original record".
The revamped track listing of the deluxe edition includes eight interspersed interludes, named "Secret 1", "Secrets 2-9: Medley", "Secret 10", "Secret 11", "Secret 12", "Secret 13", "Secret 14", and "Secret 15". The fourth track, "Unconditional", is a pop song and was conceived by Magdalena Bay as the "weird little cousin" of "Secrets (Your Fire)". A 8-bit remix to "You Lose!" and a remix to "Something for 2" by the musician Cecile Believe are included as the tenth and eleventh songs, respectively. "All You Do", the seventeenth track, is a soft rock and dream pop song with a minimalist start. Its production contains acoustic guitars, live drums, bass, and strings. In its lyrics, Tenenbaum portrays a continuous quest for fulfillment: "I only drink when I'm drunk / Can't fall asleep on my own / I only wanna have some fun / Let the party never end". It is followed by an orchestral rearrangement of "Prophecy", subtitled "Synth & Strings". Two different versions of "Chaeri" are proximate in the track listing: an energetic remix by the producer Danny L Harle and an orchestral version. "Dominó", a Spanish version of "Domino", replaces the original. The penultimate track is the "Piano & Strings" version of the title track, "Mercurial World", which precedes the last fan-made voicemail.

## Release and promotion

Magdalena Bay announced Mercurial World on June 30, 2021, and subsequently revealed its track listing and released its lead single, "Chaeri". They captioned their Spotify with "synth-pop straight from the simulation". The single was accompanied by a music video, which premiered through The Fader. For the video, the duo hired a professional team and recorded it at a film studio. They described it as an "abstract, sci-fi cybercult, symbology-ridden, laser light show masterpiece". The second single, "Secrets (Your Fire)", was released on August 11, 2021, alongside a video that sees the duo inside a 2000s desktop computer. On September 15, 2021, "You Lose!" was released as the album's third single alongside another music video, which depicts Tenenbaum and Lewin in several humorous and failing situations. "Hysterical Us" was released as the fourth and final single from Mercurial World on October 5, 2021, along with an Ian Clontz-directed visual filmed with the Milagros Collective in New Orleans. On December 6, 2021, Magdalena Bay shared a live performance video for "You Lose!". A music video for the track "Dreamcatching" premiered on March 3, 2022; it was directed by Felix Green and was made with Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) and VQGAN-CLIP technology, which creates images based on text and other pictures.
The album was also promoted digitally with lo-fi aesthetics apart from the music videos. Magdalena Bay shared TikTok videos inspired by David Lynch's filmography, a videogame recalling Galaga (1981), weekly live streams on the service Twitch, and an official website made by Tenenbaum with an Y2K aesthetic and GIFs. The visuals include retro style. According to the singer, they "buil[t] a world" around their music, while "learning how to communicate" through it. They were inspired by David Cronenberg films, including Videodrome (1983). The conceptual videos contain Windows 97 backgrounds.
Mercurial World was released through Luminelle Records on October 8, 2021, serving as the follow-up to A Little Rhythm and a Wicked Feeling. Commercially, it appeared on two Billboard charts in the United States, peaking at number 18 on the Heatseekers Albums and number 59 on the Current Album Sales chart. Mercurial World was supported by a one-off show on the same date of its release, and by the Mercurial Tour, which marked the duo's first headlining concert tour. It was announced on December 6, 2021, and included three short legs; the first took place in December 2021, the second in February 2022, and the third in March and April 2022. Magdalena Bay also performed at the first This Ain't No Picnic festival held in Pasadena, and supported Charli XCX as well as the musicians Flume and Porter Robinson in their respective tours. The duo performed "Chaeri", "Dawning of the Season", "Secrets (Your Fire)", and "You Lose!" at Variety's Live From My Den event.
On July 19, 2022, Magdalena Bay announced the deluxe edition of Mercurial World. On the same day, a Danny L Harle remix to "Chaeri" was released. They also shared North American tour dates from July to December 2022. The second single from the edition, "All You Do", was released on August 24, 2022, alongside a video directed by Luke Orlando. On September 20, 2022, "Unconditional" premiered as the edition's third single, alongside a self-directed visual. The edition was released on September 23, 2022, through Luminelle Recordings.

## Critical reception

Professional ratings :
| Aggregate scores ||
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 78/100 |
| Review scores ||
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | |
| Beats Per Minute | 74% |
| Exclaim! | 7/10 |
| The Guardian | |
| Pitchfork | 8.0/10 |
| PopMatters | 8/10 |
| Under the Radar | |
According to retrospective analysis by publications, Mercurial World received critical acclaim. On the review aggregator site Metacritic, the album holds a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reception.
The production on the album received praise from reviewers, many of whom described it as "carefully" and "smartly crafted". Ben Cohn from Beats Per Minute said that Magdalena Bay has a "relentless dedication to detail" on the album, and the well-produced songs differences them from their contemporaries. Tenenbaum's vocal interpretation received praise from Cohn and The Guardian's Laura Snapes; the latter described her performance as "wraithlike and vaporous" with punchy vocals that "land with stealth when they're given space".
Caleb Campbell of Under the Radar lauded the duo for covering several styles in the album, its cohesion, and their anthemic songs. The critic also praised them for "manag[ing] to occupy a space all their own" in the pop industry. AllMusic's Matt Colar said that the album offers "melodic highs and deeper sonic layers to explore". St. Asaph admired the "impeccably timed" key and tempo changes, while Moura opined that the diverse topics makes it "feel like a proper album".
Less enthusiastic reviewers described Mercurial World as overproduced and said that it does not build to a satisfying climax. Cohn believed that the album never "reach[es] a boil" and that the duo "suit[s] their music more for a bedroom dance party than a club night out", while wanting the album to be "a little more alive". St. Asaph thought that Mercurial World's compositions "sag in the middle". Reviewers also commented on the lyricism on Mercurial World, with some writing it was below expectations. St. Asaph perceived it as "more conventional" to their influences, adding that it seems like "unadorned afterthoughts" compared to the album's production. Exclaim!'s Kaelen Bell wrote that some songs suffer from their lyricism, and described it as "broad, placeholder". Snapes, who praised Tenenbaum's vocals, believed they were often buried under the album's "sunbaked" and over-processed production.
Our Culture Mag, PopMatters, and Pitchfork included Mercurial World on their year-end listicles of the best albums released in 2021, at numbers 19, 20, and 49, respectively. It was also included on Rob Sheffield's list for Rolling Stone at number 13, as well as on Sheldon Pearce's unranked list for The New Yorker. Additionally, the album was added by Pitchfork to a list of the best progressive pop music of 2021. Several critics highlighted "Chaeri" as a standout from Mercurial World. The latter website named it the 42nd best song of 2021, while Curto ranked it at number five, writing that it is "their best attempt yet to enter [the expertly crafted pop songs] pantheon — while staying true to themselves". In 2024, Paste called Mercurial World one of the 25 best debut albums of the 2020s.

## Track listing

All tracks are written by Magdalena Bay.

## Personnel

The personnel is adapted from the standard and deluxe edition liner notes.
Magdalena Bay
* Mica Tenenbaum – vocals, production, recording
* Matthew Lewin – production, recording, mixing, mastering
Other musicians
* Nick Villa – drums ("Something for 2" and "Hysterical Us")
* Louie Diller – drums ("Domino", "The Beginning", and "Dominó (Spanish Version)")
* Juan Ignacio Varela – saxophone ("Secrets (Your Fire)")
* Giacomo Cazzaro – saxophone ("Secrets (Your Fire)")
* Matthew Roberts – drums, percussion ("Unconditional" and "All You Do")
* Oliver Hill – string arrangement (orchestral versions)
* Julian McClanahan Calvert – violin, viola (orchestral versions)
* David Tangney – cello (orchestral versions)
Art
* Ram Han – artwork (standard edition)
* Max Taeuschel – layout (standard edition)
* John Sampson – art (deluxe edition)

## Charts

Chart performance for Mercurial World :
| Chart (2021) | Peak position |
| US Current Album Sales (Billboard) | 59 |
| US Heatseekers Albums (Billboard) | 18 |