Madi Roa

Madi Roa never wanted to sing. She worked on the unloading docks of Lorville, logging cargo, validating codes, watching freighters vanish into the smog. Her days all looked the same, shaped by the noise of thrusters and the waiting between departures. Sometimes she would hum, without thinking about it, just to give herself a bit of courage. One habit among others.

That day, she was humming on the docks, as she often did. The Scrapliners had just landed and were about to unload their Cutlass. From a distance, they caught that small, absent-minded melody and answered it instinctively, jokingly at first. The tune grew, voices layered over one another, and the improvisation ended in bursts of laughter. Madi, usually shy, simply let go that day. No one talked about music. But something had happened.

The connection between the five of them felt so natural that a few days later, they invited her aboard. Just to change her mind, they said. “Shopping in Orison.” As usual during their trips, they slipped into an impro somewhere between rock and lived stories. That was where Duct Tape Dream began to take shape. A song about making do, improbable repairs, and mistakes you choose to own. Madi hesitated. Jax insisted, gently. She sang. What they heard left them stunned. A clear, effortless voice. Gold beneath the dust.

Madi refused to do more, but she felt so good with that joyful crew that she agreed to follow them on their reckless adventures and left her job in Lorville. She took care of salvage permits, logistics, and routes. She became the calm within the chaos. The small voice behind the engines, as she likes to call it.

Jax is the only one who knows how to talk to her in a way that makes her sing. And it was during the week in Levski that everything fell into place. Still shy with all those people around her, she felt safe because “her family” was there, and she let go more than she ever had before. Later, during a break, the two Ardin brothers approached her. “There are just three or four lines, and we really want your voice.” She took a long time to decide. In truth, she was looking for Jax, who was standing a bit farther away. When he finally noticed her, he gave her a thumbs-up with a wide smile, the way he always does. She said yes.

Nok also recorded and used some of her improvised sounds. A few “ooooh” and soft “mmmhh” layered into the session. He did not tell her right away, but when she heard them later, she found it “cool.”

The Across the Clouds session marked her more deeply than she admits. Surrounded by voices from different horizons, she discovered another way of creating. A shared attention. A quiet kindness. She still says that day, the Verse seemed to breathe in a single breath.

Aboard the Cutlass, Madi naturally stays in the background. Not out of shyness, but by choice. She has never sought recognition, and even less the spotlight. She is there because she is part of the everyday life, because she matters, because her presence balances the rest. When she sings, it is never to be heard, but because the moment calls for it.

A silent complicity has settled between her and Jan. Glances, smiles, very few words. No one comments. No one needs to.

Madi continues to travel with the Scrapliners. She refuses the spotlight, but never the chorus. Maybe she will sing again. Maybe not. For her, it is not a question of music.