Madi Diaz Announces New Album, Fatal Optimist, Out October 10th via ANTI-, and Fall Tour
Madi Diaz announces her new album, Fatal Optimist, out October 10th via ANTI-, its lead single/video, “Feel Something,” and a North American Tour, on sale July 25th at 10am local time. Diaz is an artist who cuts to the emotional core of her own experiences with startling precision. Following 2021’s breakthrough History of a Feeling and 2024’s two-time Grammy nominated Weird Faith, she’s now asking audiences to lean in close. Fatal Optimist could be considered the final chapter in her heartache trilogy, and the rawest entry. This is the Madi Diaz album most likely to haunt you with its starkness.
After ending a relationship with someone she once envisioned marrying, Diaz turned away from everyone and everything she knew and took herself to an island. This heartbreak felt different. Every one of them does. Admittedly, she was embarrassed to be in this position again. "I put myself on an island,” Diaz wrote in her journal. “I was already describing myself as an emotional island swimming in so much of an ocean of feelings. It was the perfect physical manifestation, alone with all of my disappointment.” She began to navigate isolation and her time alone emerged as a powerful, insightful period of introspection. Rage, embarrassment and romantic grief shifted into inner wholeness and the pieces of Fatal Optimist started falling into place. “I didn’t know that I hadn’t chosen myself yet,” she says. “The only person I’m never gonna leave is myself.”
Solitude called to Diaz during the initial recording sessions for Fatal Optimist. After entering a New Jersey studio with friends to flesh out the songs, she later realized it wasn’t right. The album needed to sound like isolation, to mirror her experience of being completely alone. Diaz started over in Southern California with a new co-producer, Gabe Wax (Soccer Mommy, Zach Bryan), at his Infinite Family Studio. “This was the first time in my career that I stayed in this heavy place with the songs after leaving the studio rather than trying to escape it,” she says. While you’ll find subtle accompaniment from an occasional baritone guitar or bass, Fatal Optimist comes down to Diaz alone in a room with her acoustic guitar. Simplicity can be much more difficult to nail than camouflaging a song with layers of production. It is exactly what these songs needed.
Song by song, Diaz traces the phases of dissolution and rebirth. In the video for “Feel Something,” Allister Ann captures the romantic spell being fully broken, while Diaz reveals the futility of reaching for emotional connection after it’s already been lost. Today’s single presents the oscillating emotions of post-break-up limbo with energetic acoustic strumming, languid electric guitar, and a final declaration, "Fuck my life, goddamnit I might!" She moves confidently and quickly in her vocal style, showcasing her mastering the craft of phrasing: “I used to think I needed to read your mind/I’m only gonna find what I’m gonna find, and then we’ll fuck and then we’ll fight.”
Reflecting on the track, Diaz says, “‘Feel Something’ is about the deep yearning and desire to connect. It’s the moment when you’re trying to call in the love that was lost. It’s the first single off the album because it has the sense of urgency and panic that I felt at that first moment I noticed I was alone in my relationship.”
Watch the Video for “Feel Something”
In Diaz’s words, “Fatal Optimism is the innate hope for something magical. It’s the weird faith that kicks in while knowing that there is just plain risk that comes with wanting someone or something. It’s when you have no control over the outcome, but still choose to experience every moment that happens, and put your whole heart in it.”