Texas-based indie rocker Katy Kirby has shared the title track from her forthcoming debut album, Cool Dry Place, out on Feb. 19, 2021 via Keeled Scales. It’s the follow-up to her previous single “Traffic!,” and you can listen to it exclusively via Paste below.
“Cool Dry Place” is about finding the balance between emotional boundaries and the primal need for deep connection with others. With love being such a high-risk, high-reward venture, it poses taxing moral dilemmas, and Kirby finds herself finally committing, yet still looking back: “And once the dust has settled, then you’ll know / that you’re gonna get more of me than you bargained for / All the ways we can go wrong / Will we ever get that far?” The song’s dainty beginnings gradually morph into an untamed indie rock firestorm, as if to signify this jump into the great unknown.
Kirby says of the song:
I had a very fun habit of getting involved with someone and then getting cagey once they needed or just wanted me more than I was comfortable with. I thought this was very intelligent of me, being smart enough to know when to get out, before I got close enough to lose objectivity. I suppose it isn’t a terrible rule of thumb, considering that people are statistically dangerous. But this song was me beginning to see my own needs, in an embarrassingly transparent way. I too, am nothing more than a meatbag of vulnerabilities.
Listen to “Cool Dry Place,” exclusively via Paste below, and preorder the album here.
