Fist Pump v. Soft Touch

What separates the most recent waves of folk from sixties and seventies folk and even revivals of that folk are that new acoustic musicians are responding to now classic rock forms that have developed in the years between –not even revolting against them in most cases, but stylistically stripping song forms down to their bones, making them more supple, versatile and sometimes more expressive.
Madi Diaz, I find striking not for the particularly unique instrumentation, but for the vulnerability and straighforwardness of her songs. The lyrics and chords have a midnight FM directness to them, a song built from the open chord DNA of the last thirty years of American songwriting that could sneak into the back of your mind while your eyes have you locked in the dashed rhythm of the road.
This duo, Madi Diaz and guitarist Kyle Ryan, met while honing their chops at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Their style is quiet and simple by deliberate direction, make no mistake, and Ryan’s emotive accentuation highlights this.
Turn back the dial, probably ten years ago or so, I remember when a gaggle of punk bands started releasing acoustic albums. I don’t want to debate the meaning of punk here, regardless these were bands that were getting a lot of juice out of chunky electric distortion and noise. Many of them started covering older songs, still playing traditional punk bar chord down strum style. While some of these compilations may not stand the test of years (and sometimes months), they sometimes hit the alleyway joy of raw busking, and the musicians were on to something they liked, something in the punk ethos, the idea that songs could be reduced to the simplest elements and gain a new shimmering, raw and delicate power.
I like Madi Diaz’s songwriting because, with a couple more players and a few practice sessions, it could easily be blown out into a four piece radio rock band, but, thankfully, this is not the direction the band chooses. They appear, instead, to be searching for something much rarer, something that must be captured with boldness and finesses. Sometimes a soft touch says so much more than a fist pump.

Madi Diaz // Part 3 from The Parlor on Vimeo.