Madi Diaz – 7th Level Music

Review: Madi Diaz – Weird Faith

There’s an early contender for Most Honest Album of 2024, and it’s Madi Diaz‘s Weird Faith.

The album is about the weird, often intimidating process of falling in love. Diaz puts it all out there as she explores this new relationship. Behind solid rock beats, Diaz opens the album with “Everything Almost” – a song about trying to figure out how many secrets to keep and how many to share with a new lover. “Girlfriend” is the story of Diaz apologizing to a friend that she’s now the new girlfriend (“So sorry I’m your ex’s girlfriend.”), and how awkward it is for everyone involved.

“Underneath the pain, there’s still blood in my veins,” Diaz sings on “Hurting You,” encouraging her new boyfriend to be honest with her about what’s hurting him so they can work it out together. “I’m afraid you’ll run and hide,” she says on “Get to Know Me,” in which she worries that her lover will leave if she fully reveals herself to him. On “Kiss the Wall,” she explores an unknown future full of love, mystery, and what of that love will remain after she and her lover are gone. She’s tempted to fall into despair over being forgotten, but remembers that “Nothing is a waste of time.”

“I’m not a God person, but I’m never not searchin’,” she sings on “God Person,” a song about questioning one’s faith, or lack of it. The melancholy piano chords on “Don’t Do Me Good” echo Diaz’s loneliness and intimidation at the idea of leaving love that, she admits, “don’t do me good,” but might be the wrong decision to do so.

“I don’t love you like I used to. I just don’t know how to tell you…I’ve been leaving you for months now,” Diaz sings on the heartbreaking “For Months Now.” She knows her soon-to-be ex is going to devastated when she leaves, but she also knows she needs to make the call and walk out, because she’s miserable and tired of living a lie.

“KFM” is a fun track about how Diaz becomes so enamored with her new boyfriend that she wants to “kill, fuck, marry you forever.” The title track sums up the entire album. Falling in love, giving in love, requires a weird faith. You go into it knowing there’s the possibility of heartbreak, and that there eventually will be loss (from death, if nothing else), but you make the leap regardless. The closer, “Obsessive Thoughts,” is a big, bold track with guitars and drums blooming from her at-first quiet vocals and Diaz embracing what’s to come.

It’s a powerful record, and one to which we can all relate. We’ve all been there, at different degrees and at different times, and Diaz welcomes us as kindred spirits.

Keep your mind open.

[I have a weird faith that you’ll subscribe today.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Madi Diaz returns with a strong new single – “Woman in My Heart.”

“History of a Feeling” cover art – photo by Lili Pepper

Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz announces her new album, History Of A Feeling, out August 27th on ANTI-, and today presents a new single/video, “Woman In My Heart.” History Of A Feeling undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining. Across the album, Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions as she comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. She plays the line between the personal and the general with dexterity: in Diaz’s hands, quiet moments of self-pity are transformed into grand meditations on heartbreak, and unwieldy knots of big existential feelings are smoothed out with a sense of clear-eyed precision.

Diaz started working on History Of A Feeling three years ago, before beginning collaborations with co-producer Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) with whom she worked closely to flesh out the album’s instrumentation. It’s a homecoming record of sorts that points to her Nashville songwriting roots. Pulling from a range of folk, country and pop leanings, as much influenced by Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna as PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna, History Of A Feeling is comprised of the most direct and introspective songs Diaz has ever written. Throughout, she seamlessly weaves a profound sense of intimacy and camaraderie as her lyrics are relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak and great change in some manner. These universals are shaded by the fact that the relationship breakdown Diaz is chronicling coincided with her former partner transitioning, a complex reckoning Diaz approaches with empathy, candor, and care. “The bulk of this music came from dealing with a kind of tsunami clash of compassion, both for my former partner while she was discovering a deeper part of her gender identity long hidden, and my own raw heartache over having lost the partner I knew,” Diaz says. “I felt so torn through the middle because half of me wanted to hold this person through such a major life event, one that is so beautiful and hard, and the other half felt lost—like I had lost myself in someone else’s story.” It was a sea change that reverberated and ricocheted in her reflections on their relationship and her own sense of self moving forward and her process of healing.

Following the previously released singles “Nervous,” “New Person, Old Place,”and “Man In Me,” which all appear on History Of A Feeling, “Woman In My Heart” came out in one long stream-of-consciousness sweep. Throughout the track, Diaz’s resounding voice pierces through building guitar and percussion. “This song came out in a sort of waking dream while I was actively learning how to part with someone,” says Diaz. “It was hard enough not to miss/hurt/hate/fight/fuck/feel/get over them, and, what was even harder, was the love we had felt more and more like a mystery and the pain was the only thing coming in clear.” The accompanying video, directed by Diaz and Jordan Bellamy and filmed in Colorado, visualizes Diaz’s feelings of unfamiliarity. It was made with no treatment and no plan, just impulse and excitement, letting the music be the guide. Diaz elaborates: “Stumbling in the dark in old abandoned gold mines, whispering to horses at 9500 feet and digging relentlessly, all of these physical motions called out to us as a signal in a desperate attempt to unearth the truth.”

Watch Madi Diaz’s Video for “Woman In My Heart”

Pre-order History Of A Feeling

Watch Madi Diaz’s “Nervous” Video

Watch the “New Person, Old Place” Video

Watch the “Man In Me” Video

History Of A Feeling Tracklist
1. Rage
2. Man In Me
3. Crying In Public
4. Resentment
5. Think Of Me
6. Woman In My Heart
7. Nervous
8. Forever
9. History Of A Feeling
10. New Person Old Place
11. Do It Now

Keep your mind open.

[You’ll be in my heart if you subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Madi Diaz is “Nervous” on her new single.

Today, Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz releases “Nervous,” a new single about recognizing unhealthy coping mechanisms. “Nervous,” her third single for ANTI-, follows the evocative “New Person, Old Place” and “Man In Me,” and further presents Diaz’s ability to write direct and introspective music, a craft she’s spent years refining. The song’s frank lyrics are bellied by infectious guitar and Diaz’s buoyant voice: “I know why I lie to myself // I’m not really looking to get healthy // I have so many perspectives I’m losing perspective I make me nervous.” The accompanying video was shot in Nashville and directed by Jordan Bellamy. It was inspired by and includes an homage to the final scene of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film The Stalker, a film that has always resonated with Diaz through its otherworldly nature, as well as its thoughtful and often anxiety inducing pace.

“You know when you hold a mirror up to a mirror and you get an infinite amount of reflections from every angle? That’s what ‘Nervous’ is about,” says Diaz. “It’s when you’re in a loop of looking at yourself from every vantage point until you’re caught up in your own tangled web of bullshit. It’s about catching yourself acting out your crazy and you’re finally self aware enough to see it, but you’re still out of your body enough and curious enough to watch yourself do it.”
Watch Madi Diaz’s “Nervous” Video

Watch the “New Person, Old Place” Video

Watch the “Man In Me” Video

Keep your mind open.

[I get nervous when you don’t subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jessica and Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Madi Diaz gives us a lesson on presence with new single – “New Person, Old Place.”

Today, Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz releases her new single/video, “New Person, Old Place.” Madi recently marked a full restart of her career with the evocative “Man In Me,” a first offering showing how she’s capable of distilling profound feelings with ease. While “Man In Me” took Madi through her first steps of a really hard time, “New Person, Old Place” presents her further down the road, after processing the pain and loss of a breakup. She uses specific diction to describe feelings that are typically hard to verbalize: “I used to stay up on the off chance that you might call me back // I used to go shopping for pain go through pictures it’s all I had // I’d sift through our memories and live there even when I wasn’t sad // I used to, I used to, but now I don’t do that.”

Madi elaborates: “This was a moment I realized I wanted to start to learn how to do it not better, not worse, but just different… and then something shifted. Something in my heart finally knocked loose and I was breathing deeper. It’s hard as hell, breaking patterns and unlearning all the old shit, trying to shut all the doors that I used to open to let all the same hurt happen over and over. I’m at least learning to find new doors. ‘New Person, Old Place’ is a mantra. A line that I’m casting into the future so that I have something to guide me forward. It’s something of a reminder that if my heart is the house that I carry with me wherever I go, I can take it somewhere new, or I can do the same old thing I always do but backwards or with a cartwheel, and I can repaint and I can rearrange the furniture. I can clean the mirrors so I see myself true and clear.”

The “New Person, Old Place” video was directed by $ECK and shot in Madi’s pickup truck throughout Nashville. The video follows Madi on a journey to the salvage yard, driving different versions of herself to face her history.

Keep your mind open.

[Subscribing might make you a new person.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]