Music editor JOE CUNNINGHAM talks (neo-)psychedelia, genre sentimentality, and Magdalena Bay’s 2024 release, Imaginal Disk.
In the late 1970s, a shift began in psychedelic music. The sound had seen a decline in the previous decade, with the counterculture it was once fuelled by disillusioned, after events like the Vietnam War and the Manson Family murders, that the movement had failed to incite the societal change they had hoped for. The surreal, dreamy soundscapes that came to define the sound seemed inappropriate as reality asserted itself so sharply into public consciousness. Following the more tangible and structural sounds of the early 1970s, echoes of psychedelia began to ring again in the latter half of the decade, this time combined with modern methods, notably the synths of new wave and the rawness of post-punk. It was then that the term “neo-psychedelia” began to gain traction. Four and a half decades later, many modern albums still see themselves characterised by this very label: neo-psychedelic.
Post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida argued that origin cannot exist independently, but rather, only “through its functioning within a classification and therefore within a system of differences.” This idea contrasts much of Western philosophy, where it is assumed that all phenomena have a singular, fixed origin. Under Derrida’s framework, there cannot be a fixed point in time in which psychedelic music had a definitive essence from which later resurgence can meaningfully occur from. Psychedelia was, instead, constantly shaped by factors external to it, and thus existed in a permanent state of flux. Without an isolated origin, psychedelia, like all music, drew upon prior sources to create something new. The language we use to describe genre, however, would have you believe otherwise. The term neo-psychedelia implies that today’s musicians lack the originality of those of bygone times, and that their work can exist only in proximity to music of the past which, contrarily, could exist independently as “psychedelia.”
At present, we see many works, including Magdalena Bay’s 2024 Imaginal Disk, popularly labelled as “neo-psychedelic”. In an interview with Vogue, Magdalena Bay explained that in the making of their previous album, Mercurial World (2022), they were inspired by the “contemporary pop scene”, but, by contrast, drew upon sources like “70s prog rock” in the making of Imaginal Disk. Their relationship with contemporary pop and its “electronic programming” materialised before they ever ventured into the “live drums” typical of 70s psychedelia that define their present sound. Informed by techniques and styles that early psychedelia could not have possibly encountered, Imaginal Disk is inherently and irreconcilably altered by modern methods. The album itself is no doubt a feat of creativity that, crucially, could only have occurred in current times. The term “neo-psychedelia,” then, seems dismissive of this reality. It appears the language that we use for genre at present is no longer serving us as it should, or rather could.
So what of a new paradigm for genre? Terms that speak to subjective feelings, to the signified, elicit ambiguous categorisations that quickly become confusing. Neo-psychedelia is a perfect example of this. If the language we used to describe music instead spoke explicitly to the signifiers, perhaps we could establish a more accurate framework. Rather than “neo-psychedelic”, terms like “swirling,” “reverb-drenched,” “echoing,” and “phased,” to name a few, could be more applicable in addressing specific sonic qualities. It is also worth mentioning that genre labels are often applied retrospectively, rather than by the artists themselves. In a modified system, the process could instead be democratised. In the age of solely physical music, where concise categorisations were important to organise records in physical spaces, this approach would quickly become tedious. However, now having access to complex digital search engines, such an approach could be not only less monotonous, but in fact clarifying. Only then could modern music receive a fair assessment, rooted not in sentimentality but rather on merit.
Featured Image: Mica Tenenbaum onstage courtesy of Magdalena Bay.