The Full Story (in progress)
About Number Nine
Number Nine pays homage to the album style that the Beatles' white symbolised. Irreverent, experimental and eclectic, the Beatles' white was far more than a pop-rock record.
Despite the whiteness, however, Number Nine is probably Madadkin's darkest work, with a number of songs focused on the terrible conflicts facing our times: war, global warming, and the rise of fascism.
Eye for an Eye
EYE FOR AN EYE begins Number Nine’s representation of the Zeitgeist with a sad condemnation of wars. “Here comes another bomb”. The piece starts with a throbbing, rubbery bass line, punctuated by stinging, bullet like synths and pushed along by a powerful kick and snare, throbbing lo-fi piano and Adkin’s gravelly tone of voice that create a tortured longing and regret. In the distance a horn section and the sounds of bullets and battle, with everything slowly winding down to a slurping, sinking explosion of slimy chaos at the end.
Welcome to the Nightmare
WELCOME TO THE NIGHTMARE portrays the world on the fringe of these wars. The same world, but one that wallows in peace and prosperity while slipping into existential decline and perversity. It begins with a foreboding, dark and fuzzy synth accompanied by a pulsating techno drum and bass machine, announcing an entry into a haunting, apocalyptic space in which Adkin is strangely Bowie-like in a sense of satanic aloofness. The lyrics are threatening and perverse, but also with a melancholy side, building into something quite anthemic by the last chorus, with Padshop fractals creating a cold and threatening undercurrent in anticipation of the chaos that is to come.
We Care
WE CARE prolongs the decadent line of the “nightmare”. Musically, it pays homage to the Beatles with a Spanish flamenco intro that brings forth a distant echo to the Rocky Racoon of the Beatles’ white. Deconstructed through a Retrologue vibrating synth programme, WE CARE then collapses into a playful between the synth and the lo-fi horns or a honky-tonk piano which gradually become more prominent. The lyrics, which bounce between insightfulness and absolute nonsense, are delivered acapella by the cold and refined cockney of Wendy Word, or with the shrill pain of her sister Wanda.
Our Faustian Bargain
OUR FAUSTIAN BARGAIN groans into life with Adkin’s gravelly voice over a mix of lo-fi guitar, rubbery bass and basic kick and snare, giving it a grizzly blues feel. The lyrics throb forward as if reciting a nursery rhyme, but are in fact warning of the system’s ignominious pact with the devil, a Faustian bargain which is everything but what we need.
What would you like?
In this track we return to Hell itself, expressed here in the most absolute blandest terms, for the lyrics here are quite simply: “What would you like?”
“I would like a coffee, please?”
The feeling is hollow and superficial but the music is jazzy and anguished. A throbbing upright bass, with percussive drum impros and intermittent screams of sax.