A Slow Motion Free Fall

White Hinterland “Chill and Natural”

Casey Dienel’s music has changed dramatically over the course of her career, and though her new single “Chill and Natural” isn’t a drastic departure from the elliptical, atmospheric electronic music of her last album, Baby, its industrial pop sound and overtly feminist lyrics are a world away from the twee, introverted piano tunes of her debut from a decade ago. I first heard this song while working on the 1989 survey and was listening to Madonna’s “Express Yourself” and Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole” all the time, and I immediately recognized it as a cousin to those songs. A lot of that resemblance is in the aggressive, confident tone of the music, and the way the intensity of the sound seems to escalate on a constant 60 degree angle. But where those songs come from a place of incredibly certainty, Dienel’s singing about being driven crazy by straight men’s inconsistent yet inflexible expectations for women and their bodies. Her tone switches between droll sarcasm – “Tom says he likes girls who are down for whatever / down for whatever, yeah, that’s me” – and total exasperation at both the women who play along with these arbitrary rules and the men who can’t grasp that their preferences are tied up in contradictions and come off more like demands. The humor and anger in this song is balanced just right, and it perfectly captures that feeling when you’re so impatient and confused that you think you’re losing your mind, but you know it’s not your fault.

Buy it from iTunes.