Madeline Darby is one of the few, the proud, the super cool repeat offenders on the Times Boredom top 10 club, having been on our list back in 2020 for her terrific album ‘innovation’ (if you recall, there was something going on that year that caused us to have to rank bands by recordings alone given the difficulties there were with live performances…). And just as in 2020, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Ms. Darby’s incredibly pertinent contributions to the scene, both as a member of the Superdark Collective, Thinner Friends, and plenty of other collaborations with fellow local artists such as the recent single Sacred Gates with Jennifer Maher Coleman of Haley Moley, Architrave and the Honey DJ Collective (which you can listen to and download at https://madelinedarby.bandcamp.com/track/sacred-gates).

In addition to all of these awesome things, Madeline Darby released a full album in 2022 that was an ENORMOUS critical success. Our friend and sometimes writer/editor for Times Boredom W.A. Wright wrote an aptly glowing review of the record (read it here: https://nippertown.com/2022/05/28/album-review-not-this-universe-the-origins-of-madeline-darby/), and if W.A. Wright says it’s good, well then we get off our couch and run out to buy it! Ok that’s not true, we don’t get off the couch but reading a review like that gets us straight to the bandcamp page where we made a purchase immediately. Isn’t technology wonderful? I mean time was you could go to a local record store and aks if they had local records on commission or something, and chances were you’d find one of your friends or a potential new friend doing the same thing. Then you could hang out with your friends at the record store, just chat and waste time on the weekend, and start coming to a consensus about how terrific not only the local music scene is right now but Madeline Darby specifically, how she’s exceeding our expectations and creating unpredictable ‘innovations’ in music and sound.

(Forgive me for going off on a tangent about the ‘old days’, but it’s related in an obtuse way. Sort of. Keep reading, I’ll put it all together somehow!)

A lot of what we love and appreciate about Madeline Darby is her indefatigably (5$ word!) positive sense of community. What we and we think a lot of other people love about her is her support for everything that’s great about music and noise in the Capital District. And also as a ‘private citizen’ she’s always attending shows, being supportive, and always having plenty of positive things to say about our burgeoning little scene (especially in Troy), which is, as she put it, “HOT HOT HOT”! And not only is she doing short collaborations with other local artists but the album credits themself read like a top 50 list of all the great artists in the Capital REgion; Aunt Lonely, Goldeedust, NXNES, Zero Lee, 100 Psychic Dreams & Triya Love. And of course the Ballston Spa G.O.A.T. is here mixing and mastering like he does on SO many great local albums (in addition to his own) that you wonder when he has time to sleep… And not only does she list her collaborators and the indefatigable (careful now, not really using that word correctly and that’s gonna cost you in the final concluding paragraph) Paul Coleman but she even mentions and gives thanks to all the local places and even publications including ours truly little blog cottage operation!

Trust us, the love is mutual.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard that Madeline Darby is going on hiatus for awhile. In the meantime, a mysterious new stranger to the local music scene calling herself ‘Jane Woodshed’ has appeared and, if you (like us) just can’t wait for your next Madeline Darby fix, Jane Woodshed has many similarities and will most likely kick a ton of ass as well. Looking forward to hearing all of the many the new ‘innovations’ that Sarah Darby brings to the local music scene. Innovative, supportive, and HOT HOT HOT!