Remember me for who I am right here,
Relinquish me from all my chains of fear.
Scene: a sealed interior. Light without mercy. Space trimmed down to function and fear. Breath counts itself. Thought repeats. The body becomes a site of negotiation, every movement a quiet argument about who gets to stay in charge.
“My Own Design” is the latest release from Madeline Goldstein’s forthcoming full-length album, anticipated in the first quarter of the new year, and it reads like a thesis statement. Song and video work together as a study in self-authorship under pressure: the effort to stay whole while facing panic as a double that knows your moves. What remains is focus, friction, and the uneasy clarity of watching two versions of yourself fight for the same space.
Madeline Goldstein holds the center with her calibrated voice: discipline carrying something volatile just beneath the surface. The music leans into classic synth-pop form: clean lines, firm tempos – bringing to mind Goldfrapp, The Human League, Berlin, and Eurythmics, where elegance doubles as containment. The appeal sits in control, and the cost of keeping it.
The video sharpens that tension. Conceived by Goldstein, choreographed by Alissa Pegram, and directed by lonelyrodeostar, it unfolds as a three-way collaboration that treats movement as argument. Two versions of the self circle and collide: anxiety pushing for takeover, logic bracing to keep the structure intact. The choreography shifts gears between these states in tight, measured sequences breaking into something more frantic; each change in posture or pace marking a shift in authority.
There’s a distinctly Lynchian sense of dislocation at work, thrown in with a bit of eerie Maya Deren surrealism. Spotlights carve out pools of exposure inside what feels like a seedy hotel room; an ’80s television hums nearby, bending time into something unstable. Light becomes a character, interrogating bodies, freezing gestures, then letting them slip loose again. The result plays like a rehearsal caught between eras, past and present bleeding together under fluorescent glare. The repetition is intentional. Beats return with purpose. Gestures reset, then strain against their limits.
Watch the video for “My Own Design” below:
“This track is a manic rebellion against my struggle with anxiety and panic,” says Goldstein. “It speaks to a time in which I felt completely and utterly out of control, unrecognizable to myself. Musically I wanted to represent the feelings of obsession, repetition and claustrophobia I was up against on a daily basis. Like many other songs on the record, it focuses in on my relationship to the physical world, (my last EP being my relationship with the inner or ‘other’ world). Measuring up my shortcomings, flaws, and fixations while also protesting them in the most ambitious ways.”
The production, handled by Matia Simovich at Infinite Power Studios in Los Angeles and mastered by Josh Bonati, keeps edges sharp and surfaces clear, a sound built for exposure rather than escape.
Goldstein’s full-length record arrives in early 2026 via Artoffact Records. Listen to My Own Design below, out now via Artoffact Records, and order the single here.
My Own Design by Madeline Goldstein
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