Jeni Magaña knows how to set the mood. With just some plucked guitar, a few trembling tones, some gently persuasive orchestrations, and a voice as fragile as snowflakes on the eve of a warm day, she leads us into the stillness of “Hold On”, a mid-winter ballad of immeasurable resilience. There’s a calm clarity to its rhythms, harmonies tumbling over one another as she deconstructs the crystalline structures of her pop impulses. She paints in subtle hues of sonic intimacy, moments of universal ache and joy offered through a series of personal experiences and half-remembered dreams.
Under the guise of Magana, the Los Angeles musician has earned her stripes as the bassist and backing vocalist for Mitski and for her work with Lady Lamb and alongside Emily Moore in the pop duo pen pin. Her new EP, Bad News, is out today via Audio Antihero Records, and it finds her resting comfortably in a period of transition, moving way from the acid rock and synth-endowed pop of her early work and reveling in the bliss of simple, stark arrangements and words that cut into the deeper chambers of your heart.
The accompanying video doubles down on the wintry themes, with grainy video of snow-covered landscapes acting as a conduit for the echoes of our subconscious.
“My mother has a difficult time understanding song lyrics unless she’s reading along while listening,” she explains. “I think of her every time I make a lyric video. For ‘Hold On’, I wanted the viewer to get a picture of a setting, but for the characters and situations to be filled in by them. I chose a snowy walk as the backdrop for this song. There’s something inherently melancholy about snow. It makes everything feel isolated even though if you watch carefully, you can catch a glimpse of the shadows of two people. I’m imagining the song playing as a soundtrack. The POV character has chosen to take this walk and each lyric is a thought in their head.“
Watch the clip below.
Bad News is out today via Audio Antihero Records. You can purchase it here. Follow her on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
