The announced program
Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul have disclosed the twelve-song order of Mainland Madinina, their follow-up to Topical Dancer. Restless opens it, the previously shared Googoo Gaga comes second and the newly announced From Healer to Dealer sits fifth. Stepmother and Mana separate the second song from the new one. That is the concrete program available before listeners have heard the whole record. The early single and new song are not placed back to back; two works stand between them. The order alone cannot settle how the complete album sounds, but it does establish which works the duo intends to present together.[1]
From Healer to Dealer has been introduced as a satire of wellness culture using characters named Grace and Ruben. Lennert Madou directed its aerobic video. The subject of that song and its images are known; the full record has not yet been heard, so those details cannot describe every track. After Saint-Lucia, the list runs through Pleaser to Meet You, Losing My Shit, Délirez-Vous?, Dad or Alive and Rite of Passage. I’m Lost is the closer. The ending, too, is part of the announcement. A single cannot stand in for that ending.[1]
Production and the stage
Soulwax returns as the duo’s production partner after Topical Dancer, and Deewee and Because are the releasing labels. Adigéry said the Soulwax members help them work further into a song’s intention when they get stuck. Pupul likewise described the collaboration as working with musicians who know where to intervene. Those are the artists’ accounts of their process. The named production partners and labels are verifiable details of the announced album. None of that establishes the exact sound of each instrument on the complete record.[1]
The announced tour passes through Cologne, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and Paris in February, then Glasgow, Manchester, London and other European cities in March. Its North American portion runs from Los Angeles to Brooklyn. Those dates identify announced stage locations for the album program; they give no set list for any night. The narrow, solid reading of this announcement is that Adigéry and Pupul have named the order, the closer and the production partners. Today the works have names and positions in a list; the released album itself is needed to distinguish their musical forms.[1]