23 September 2026 – Caroline Rose Stays Suspiciously Calm While a New Album Approaches

Caroline Rose's "Calm" receives another spotlight today as anticipation builds for the wonderfully titled forthcoming album "Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall", due October 23 through SUCK Records. The single was released earlier this month alongside "Hello Again, Jim", joining previous previews "Yip Yip Yow" and "Chow Mein".

Produced by John Congleton, "Calm" uses the kind of title that becomes progressively funnier once the song starts revealing how very much calmness may not actually be occurring. Rose has explained that sarcasm and humour often provide a route into subjects that are substantially harder underneath, and the song plays with the gap between claiming serene control and feeling anything but serene. That tension has long been central to Rose's best work: bright, strange, often funny surfaces carrying considerably less tidy emotional machinery below.

"Hello Again, Jim", meanwhile, targets a recognisable species of supposedly relaxed older music-industry man whose definition of being laid-back somehow includes questionable dating choices and a Porsche. Together, the tracks suggest the upcoming album will continue Rose's refusal to choose between comedy, discomfort and art-pop experimentation. The record's title alone deserves some sort of municipal award. Plenty of musicians can announce a new album. Very few can make you wonder whether the horse is literally inside the shopping centre and, if so, whether security has been informed.