Casey Dienel ‘Your Girl’s Upstairs’ – out now!
Casey Dienel’s return with “Your Girl’s Upstairs” is a gorgeously layered meditation on queer autonomy and emotional clarity. It’s the kind of song that opens up slowly, revealing unexpected edges with every listen. Built on a hypnotic percussive loop and richly textured guitars from Hand Habits’ meg duffy, Dienel crafts a sonic landscape that’s both intimate and widescreen—inviting listeners into a deeply personal reckoning dressed in lush, inventive pop production.
Lyrically, the song is a standout. Dienel’s pen moves with surgical precision, distilling complex emotional dynamics into crystalline lines like, “She played house, played dead…”—a chorus that feels both liberating and gutting. There’s a sense of quiet defiance running beneath the surface, a refusal to simplify queerness or desire into something digestible. Instead, Dienel embraces multiplicity: the flirt, the romantic, the misfit, and the homebody, all coexisting in a singular voice.
“Your Girl’s Upstairs” marks a bold reentry for an artist who’s always thrived in the in-between spaces. As a preview of My Heart Is An Outlaw, it’s thrilling in its restraint and rich in emotional texture. With each layer peeled back, Dienel reaffirms her place among the most vital, shape-shifting voices in indie pop.
