The Full Story
About New World Party
New World Party is Madadkin's eighth album, released in 2023.
Shock Doctrine Blues
This album opens with the slow strumming of a tremolo guitar and the lazy thud of the drum, quite comic, as if we were about to hear anything but a song referencing Naomi Klein's thesis of the SHOCK DOCTRINE. Ironic it is, because the seriousness of the situation has become absurd; the fact that the disaster is assimilated into normality is illogical and ridiculous. And so the musical mix comes with this feeling of absurdity as well. Against the almost silly twangs of the tremolo, Adkin's gravelly voice denotes something far more serious, as does the subtle aggression in the fast strumming of the acoustic guitars lying just below the surface.
"Our salaries got frozen but that 'aint no news/Prices are risin', they're closin' the schools/The economists are happy, but we've all got... Shock doctrine blues."
FEVER OF WALLS, HOW MUCH TIME HAVE WE GOT LEFT, STRANGE SOUND, & TOURGUIDE BLUES
The musical nostalgia, and Americana silliness, is maintained in the second track, with the banjo twanging FEVER OF WALLS. This song denounces capitalism as a builder of walls rather than freedom. This is followed by a carnival-style apocalypse in HOW MUCH TIME HAVE WE GOT LEFT? From greed to global warming, the nightmare forms and slides into the mad hallucination of STRANGE SOUND and the oneiric surrealism of TOURGUIDE BLUES.
GOD IS DEAD, DOP DOP, TA TA, THINKING IS NOT AN EXTRATERRESTIAL EVENT, & DESERTIFICATION
But what should we expect, after all GOD IS DEAD, a jazzy, moral voice from Hell.
DOP DOP and TA TA are nonsensical snippets perfect for these nihilistic times, in complete contrast to the philosophical dissertation of THINKING IS NOT AN EXTERRESTIAL EVENT and the soulful jazz instrumental of DESERTIFICATION.
THE WALTZ FOR A MILLENNIUM SO OLD, SISYPHUS ROCK, WHEN THE PEACOCK HIDES ITS TAIL, & THE NEW WORLD PARTY
THE WALTZ FOR A MILLENNIUM SO OLD could be considered a melancholy soundtrack for our Zeitgeist:
"Instead of thinking we started drinking/and now we're too drunk to know/
We should be working instead of hurting..."
Sinking into a blues about the myth of Sisyphus in SISYPHUS ROCK then the surrealistic WHEN THE PEACOCK HIDES ITS TAIL, that brings that tremolo guitar back again, only to slide into the sarcastic optimism of the title track, THE NEW WORLD PARTY.
This track is another remix from the Talking to Trains album and it brings back the voice of Ariadna Santana.
I WANTED TO SAVE YOU, & ROBIN HOOD
I WANTED TO SAVE YOU is a serious, stern, moralistic ballad, with lo-fi piano and a wobbling, rubbery synthesised bass. The piece slowly builds toward a climax with strings, choir, a heavy, kick and snare based drum, and finally horns.
In ROBIN HOOD Adkin goes back to his own Nottinghamshire roots and the legendary local hero.
But the vision in this little ballad is anachronistic and contemporary... a pathetic call for revolution perhaps.
With an underlying, constant sequence of fast chromatic percussion working against the long zoomorphised chords generated by Halion's Flux engine.
"We have to keep fighting
'cause we're running out of time!"