On the swift follow-up to their 2024 EP, San Francisco’s Magic Fig take that blueprint of their sound and add a little more of everything: colour and creativity, scope and sonic exploration. Formed of ten exuberant new songs, Valerian Tea sees the psych-pop supergroup (ft. members of The Umbrellas, Healing Potpourri, Almond Joy, Whitney's Playland, and Blades of Joy) dive even further into the lush and layered sound that defined last year’s breakthrough, opening up a whole new realm to be explored. The band remains the same, fixed in the run up to the release of the aforementioned self-titled debut. Founding members Matt Ferrara (bass), Muzzy Moskowitz (guitar), and Jon Chaney (keyboards, piano) work alongside Inna Showalter (vocals, mellotron) and Taylor Giffin (drums and percussion); all arriving from varying musical projects across the always-vibrant San Francisco scene.

Built from a swirling mass of instrumentation, which includes piano, synthesizers, glockenspiel, organ, 12-string acoustic and electric guitar, Valerian Tea is the sound of a band making for themselves a bold new world; a tumbling place of dizzying dynamics and overwhelmingly colorful vision. The album was primarily written before last year’s debut release, then brought to life in the time after, the patient, drawn-out process allowing the band to push the boundaries of their sound and vision.

Across the ten tracks that they’ve crafted here, Magic Fig touch upon themes of skewed maternal influence, the fickleness of inspiration, melancholy and contemplation, and does so in a way that feels strikingly unique. Often pulled from childhood memories and deep-seated reflections, occasionally inspired by mystical stories and tellings, Valerian Tea is often many things at the same time: light and dark, land and air, tangible and completely abstract.