Marked for release on the 23rd April 2021 (via Trickwork), the record is preceded by the cinematic illusion of lead single: “The City”, plus an exclusive album teaser trailer.
Like the disparate strains of a dream as the waking world pours into consciousness, “The City” is an enigmatic listening experience that hints at a wider universe. Commanding a washed-out palette to create a piece of faded splendour, the track recalls the surrealist soundscapes of M83 to Angelo Badalamenti and offers a tantalising entry point to his ‘Midnight Pizza’ project. Clocking in at just 1’47, it challenges the listener to search for a deeper meaning perennially just out of focus, that all-too-soon disappears in an ether of hazy electronics.
The opening track of his upcoming album, “The City” took form as Ade relocated to a new part of town in search of a fresh start and a clear path to adulthood. Although finding himself invigorated with the fresh sense of optimism, confidence and inspiration that change can bring; the feeling would prove to be short-lived. Sitting down to perform “The City” in his new apartment, the song would elicit a personal realisation that real change doesn’t happen overnight. As Ade recollects:
“As soon I sang out that first line, I could hear the same voice, from the same guy, alone in an apartment picking up where I left off, in the middle of a song I had been singing for some time now, lamenting the same paradoxes I think a lot of us occasionally experience - loneliness and actively engaging, if not reveling in, antisocial behaviors and habits. That’s the melodrama of your early 20s though I guess, but, gotta say, everything got a lot less heavy after I quit smoking weed.”
“I didn’t see any real reason why I should inhibit my instincts to shapeshift and experiment at the expense of expressing myself and all my musical influences. The goal of this album was to create a kind of tie dye venn-diagram wherein everything I liked and felt and was inspired by could embrace and dance around.” says Ade.
A record where fantasy and reality entwine often paradoxically, ‘Midnight Pizza’ takes an equally schizophrenic approach to its lyrical matter. Oddball phrases clash with profound epiphany. Humour obliquely shadows sincerity. Written over the past 5 years, Ade re-evaluates that familiar road that leads to so-called adulthood. A coming of age record for the millennial generation, “Midnight Pizza’ restlessly reflects on themes of social media voyeurism and surveillance, over-indulgence and insecurity.
Shedding light on ‘Midnight Pizza’, its curious title and underlying concepts, Ade says: “A midnight pizza is something we’re told you can only indulge in for so long before it takes its toll on your health, but how do we know when that is?... The surreal truth of this Zuckerverse is so many of the people I know never lost touch with the people they went to high school with (myself included), which I think has made it pretty difficult to track how much we’ve grown up, or if we even have. On top of that, all this social media voyeurism is mostly done (this past year, especially) from home, simultaneously judging one another and feeling left out from our rooms. The songs on the album are sung by the many voices in my head trying to process all this overstimulation at once, in real time. Insecurity, joy, critic, conscience, you name it. I think people are sort of rubber band balls of these voices, experiences, and contradictions - but those things are what make us bounce.”
MIDNIGHT PIZZA – TRACKLIST