Magana's "Inches Apart" is the sound of late-night emotional fragility writ large

Recalling Torres and Sharon Van Etten at their most intimate moments, "Inches Apart" says a lot with nothing more than guitar and voice. A darkly circular and crackling riff is at the heart of the song, while Maganas parched vocal is a complete heartbreaker. As she sings "I have built my cell by hand / I was dreaming of the Southern sand / and while every night you visit me / darling you are friends with misery" we're right there in this after-dark meeting of two people brought together by love but torn apart by circumstance.

We spoke to Magana to find out more about the singer and whats going on in "Inches Apart".

So just who is Magana?

Magana is the alter ego of Jeni Magana (which is me). I don't know where she came from. She is dark and haunted and all about emotion. She's not afraid to tell it like it is and she's not afraid of vulnerability. She makes music that is sometimes weird and eerie but also can be sweet and forthcoming.

Who or what influences you?

I'm influenced so much by my surroundings but I also have some musical heroes, for sure. Whatever I read or watch ends up coming into my writing; I'm really affected by people's emotions and I'm constantly putting myself in other people's shoes and trying to determine how I would feel if I were in their situation. I discovered Daughter's music pretty recently and the lead singer (Elena Tonra) said somewhere that she's a very sensitive person but that being sensitive and being ok with that is a sort of strength. That really resonated with me and gave me the courage to write a song like Inches Apart, even though I would have been way too afraid to show anyone the song before.

What can you tell us about "Inches Apart"?

For me, this song is about the conflict between someone that I love and circumstances that I hate. It would be nice to think that love conquers all but we all know that sometimes it doesn't. I wrote it about a very specific situation that I was worrying over and it was a lot like song-therapy. Then I started playing it at shows and people were telling me that they felt like it was written about this very specific situation they were going through that was completely different than mine. But I thought about the words and they were right! A good friend of mine was one of these people, and as I was performing this song at a Brooklyn show I realized I was visualizing what she was going through instead of what I wrote it about. She was in the front row feeling the same thing. That was a pretty emotional show.