Run

Over the last few years, MADMADMAD have built a steady reputation as one of the UK’s most thrilling electronic acts through constant touring and an unbeatable live show that’s cemented their status as true left-of-center innovators in their class. And the Tottenham-hailing trio is just getting started: with a new EP it finds Benji Bouton, Kevin Toublant, and Matt Kelly reinventing their own sound and reflecting the chaos of the world around them, it’s about to be a mad, mad, mad year for anyone who crosses their path—and all the better, too.

MADMADMAD emerged in 2017 out of impromptu late night jam sessions in a North London flat-turn-studio. The result of those DIY excursions was a self-released white-label EP that sold like hotcakes and generated an instant level of buzz for the group along with their energetic performances around the UK—a live presence that led to MADMADMAD opening for electronic pop auteur Róisín Murphy in 2022 and eventually becoming her backing band.

Across three full-lengths albums, the trio have showcased a beguiling and constantly shapeshifting sound inspired by Black Devil Disco Club and Parliament-Funkadelic’s otherworldly looseness, as well as the early 2000’s electro and the rough-and-ready dance-punk sonics of New York City circa the late 1970s and early 1980s—think Liquid Liquid, ESG, and James Chance and the Contortions with a thoroughly modern coat of paint lovingly splattered atop the framework those bands established. “The New York scene has definitely been a strong influence for us,” the band explain. “It buzzes in all directions, and it’s pretty punk-y on every side of the spectrum.”

Their latest album, the krautrock-tastic Behavioural Sink Delirium from 2023, paired MADMADMAD with producer Eddie Stevens (Zero 7, Moloko, Róisín Murphy) and—in true spirit to their origins—was recorded in 10 days during the COVID-19 pandemic and fashioned out of over 30 hours of improv sessions. “Everything was going to shambles, which made for a really chaotic album,” Benji recalls, describing the record as “very experimental”—which quite literally applies to the study that the album borrows its title from.

“Scientist John B. Calhoun did this experiment, called Universe 25, where he created a paradise for mice - a community where they’d have everything they needed to thrive,” he explains. “There was a tipping point where it became absolutely chaotic. The mice began getting depressed, cannibalism started, and the fertility rate went down. It felt like what was happening with western society. We’re offered more than we need, and yet some stuff seems to go not quite right.“

And the trio’s latest EP finds MADMADMAD taking another left turn in their fascinating discography, diving deep into the sounds of mutant disco and early electronic music to great effect. “We wanted to go back to our dancier roots,” Matt states. “We strayed away from the chaos of the last album and were looking to embrace simplicity; bringing it back to the essence of just bass and drums. We wanted to embrace a pared-down version of what we’ve been doing these past few years.”

EP

The EP’s opening cut “Small Talk” is chock full of spring-loaded rhythms and off-kilter synth squiggles, at once recalling the tricky figures of Aphex Twin and Hot Chip’s more left-field excursions; meanwhile, “Spin Wave” finds MADMADMAD stretching their limbs into Chemical Brothers’ territory, with a Bollywood-infused guitar riff a haunting bass line, and the type of laser-focused chaos that causes dancefloors to practically erupt in flames.

Then there’s the first single “Run”—which features Rachel Kenedy on vocals and has a satisfyingly rude and minimalistic feel, nodding at Tom Tom Club and not unlike something you’d hear from legendary Berlin producer Ellen Allien’s bPitch Control label. Lyrically, the song represents what the band describe as “the feeling of walking the hamster wheel that is the day-to-day rat race,” and the general notion of perpetual, involuntary motion played a role in the EP’s creation. “We’ve been working on this in between studios,” Kevin explains. “We were living in a warehouse where we had our studio, and after we got kicked out we started doing all of it at home, like we used to do when we started.”

Listening to MADMADMAD can be delightfully disorienting, and that quality extends to the band’s collagist and homemade visual art that accompanies their music. “History goes in cycles, and we feel there’s a correlation with what happened a century ago, when everything was so chaotic and people had a hard time making sense of what was going on in the world,” Benji explains while describing how the band take cues from the 20th century’s Dadaist movement. “It feels like we’re at that moment again—where it’s quite hard to make sense of everything with so much information every day. There was quite a lot of confusion back then after the first world war and a global pandemic, and the response of the arts was to reflect the nonsensical place the world was at. We feel heavily influenced by that, so that’s what we put in our music and visuals.