Last year represented a career high for Madi Diaz. Her sixth studio album ‘Weird Faith’ received two Grammy nominations as she enjoyed a higher profile after opening for Harry Styles before joining his tour band. ‘Fatal Optimist’, however, finds Diaz’s faith in love shattered. A break-up album, it’s raw and stripped back in a manner that’s even more intimate than her previous work, which always skewed personal and confessional.
These songs were written during a period of introspection as Diaz retreated to an island to process her grief in a way that brings to mind Justin Vernon’s log cabin sojourn before the first Bon Iver album. She distilled the resulting reflections and what she calls a newfound “inner wholeness” into a batch of 11 soul-searching songs.
When it came to record, she determined the album needed to mirror the isolation she had experienced: just herself alone in a room with a guitar.
Working with producer Gabe Wax, she duly stuck to her bare-bones blueprints, relying solely on her writing and a string of stunning vocal performances.
Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ was a cornerstone of Diaz’s musical education and she channels it here. ‘Fatal Optimist’ is an astonishing vocal tour de force that runs the gamut between anguish, defiance, self-compassion and hope.
She describes the LP’s title as capturing the innate hope for something magical, while understanding the risk. It’s a status she embraces on the closing title track, where she’s joined, for the first time, by a full band. Accepting she has no control over the outcome of a relationship, she still chooses to experience every moment and put her whole heart into it. Diaz walks away from the record under no illusions, though, concluding: “I know exactly what this is / I’m a fatal optimist / Every single time / I hate being right.”
Madi Diaz Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed February 04 2026 - EDINBURGH Cabaret Voltaire
Thu February 05 2026 - MANCHESTER Deaf Institute - Music Hall
Sat February 07 2026 - NOTTINGHAM Rough Trade Nottingham
Mon February 09 2026 - BRISTOL Exchange Bristol
Tue February 10 2026 - BRIGHTON Green Door Store
Wed February 11 2026 - LONDON London Oslo
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