The San Francisco-based artist Rose Droll has a treasure trove of home-recorded spindly guitar music on Bandcamp, most properly codified in last year’s Photograph EP. Her official debut album, Your Dog represents a bit of a sonic departure — she’s adopted looser structures, beats that hit like wet newspaper slaps.

Its lead single, “Hush,” is a frenetic moving puzzle piece, tied together with Droll’s whispery wordplay. She blends in church traditionals and nursery rhymes and allusions to other songs in her quick-footed shuffle, kaleidoscopic in execution.

The song pivots around two characters, ostensibly Droll and an infatuation, one who she can see right through and might even love regardless of their faults. “So baby when you gonna give a fuck?” she asks this second party. “It doesn’t cut to rely on luck/ Not when the world keeps spinning, the losers keep winning, the kids die young and the holy keeps singing.”

Droll evaluates her own shortcomings just as much, presenting herself as someone who keeps pushing people away because she’s still stuck in the past. “Those days are behind me, never again to find me,” she sings, but the ties don’t sever so easily. “Next to nothing, I might love and you might love me/ See me sweetly,” she sings a little bit later.

“Hush” drops off towards the end, but not before it’s interrupted by a familiar iPhone trill, the persistence of the outside world creeping in.

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Outside Looking In”
02 “Hush”
03 “Happy Kitten”
04 “Boy Bruise”
05 “Fat Duck”
06 “Riddle”
07 “Cat June”
08 “Something Of A Rabbit”
09 “Episodes In The Park”
10 “Your Dog”

TOUR DATES:
10/15 Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place *
10/20 Los Angeles, CA @ The Moroccan Lounge *
10/21 San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe *
11/13 San Francisco, CA @ Green Apple Books On The Park
12/13 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
* w/ Madeline Kenney

Your Dog is out 11/16 via Father/Daughter Records (US) & Double Denim (UK). Pre-order here.

CREDIT: Rachel McCord