And if I stay, will I forget the way I felt today?
Deliver to myself or walk away?
Remember me for who I am right here,
relinquish me from all my chains of fear.
It is a room without corners, a heart without windows. The air closes in like thought itself, thick with the murmur of one’s own unworthiness. Each breath tastes of confinement, each heartbeat a reminder that there is no escape from the self. The mind coils in its own shadow, gnawing at the edges of reason. In this dim and airless place, even light feels accusatory. You cannot flee your own company, cannot outpace the echo that knows your name. So you sit with it: the narrow cell of your body, the vast terror of being only yourself.
There’s a fever beneath the gloss of My Own Design, a glittering tremor that unsettles as much as it seduces. Madeline Goldstein steps into the frame with a voice both human and hallucinatory, poised at the edge of control, yet trembling with the charge of release. The song feels like a panic attack turned into choreography: each synth line a heartbeat, each snare hit a gasp for air. Beneath its gloss lies something raw and frightened, a pulse that quickens with dread and deliverance alike.
“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.”
That confession hums in the machinery of the track. Synths shimmer with mechanical devotion; drums march with near-religious insistence. The song feels measured yet feverish, as if recorded inside the skull during an anxiety spiral. Goldstein’s voice rises above the glinting fog like a flare from a distant freeway.
Produced and mixed by Matia Simovich at Infinite Power Studios in Los Angeles and mastered by Josh Bonati, My Own Design moves with the clean geometry of classic synthpop, those precise melodic turns and crystalline textures recalling the theatrical grace of Berlin, Eurythmics, Til Tuesday, and Goldfrapp. Yet there’s something contemporary in its unease: an awareness of how the digital and the physical blur, how selfhood can fray under its own reflection.
The song’s power lies in its containment: emotion disciplined into dance, confession smuggled into rhythm. It’s beautiful and affecting in equal measure, a pop hymn for the anxious mind trying to keep its composure under the spotlight’s heat. My Own Design captures the terror of being your own creation, even at your own risk.
Listen to “My Own Design” below:
Goldstein’s full-length record arrives in early 2026 via Artoffact Records. Listen to My Own Design below and order the single here.
Follow Madeline Goldstein:
Or via: