Caroline Rose has always found the surreal embedded within the banal, and Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall pushes that instinct to its furthest edge. The record constructs a hyperreal Americana fantasy where everyday life is asked to reveal its underbelly. The release doubles as the debut of SUCK records, Rose’s own imprint—a fitting next form for an enigmatic artist whose work resists settling into one shape.

Working with producer John Congleton, Rose built the album through humor, layering, and instinct rather than polish. It pairs sharply observed, memoiristic songwriting with expansive guitar textures that render the everyday with violent clarity and mythic scale. Beneath its melodic sweep and signature hooks runs a current of violence and American dream leakage. It’s Ennio Morricone with an AR15: surf guitars, spaghetti westerns, and suburban dread colliding until they become their own sharp vernacular.

The record dips into caricature to tell stories through Rose’s idiosyncratic aesthetic fantasies, as on ‘Chow Mein,’ which lurches between menace and slapstick: “a bouncer at the door // he asks for the password // I’m already drunk cause I // can’t afford a cocktail // I pause before I throw up all over his tailored suit.”

Reflecting on ‘Chow Mein,’ Rose says, “A lot of my songs I think of as scenes in a movie. I relate to characters who are a little strange, who are outsiders, who seem to fuck up a lot or find themselves in awkward situations. Most of these stories are just pulled directly from scenes in my own life, so the character is basically always some version of myself. This is a story about trying too hard to be cool and act normal, but everything is going wrong.”

Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall:

1. Yip Yip Yow
2. Chow Mein
3. Valery (please don’t be mad at me)
4. Cement Head
5. Goddamn Train
6. Notes to Teenage Self
7. Conversation with Shiv (AKA liquid k song)
8. Hello Again, Jim
9. Calm
10. RIDE (!!!)
11. Everything in its Right Place

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“I like to imagine this song being performed by four teenagers in a garage who are equally obsessed with The Gun Club and Britney Spears,” says Rose of the single. ‘Yip Yip Yow’ effortlessly blends elements of psychobilly, pop, alt-country and rock — all tied together by Rose’s commanding, snappy vocals and biting lyrics. Produced by John Congleton, the theatrical track captures the loose, raucous energy that has made it an in-demand staple of their shows.

Reflecting on the song and its legacy, Rose says, “I wrote ‘Yip Yip Yow’ 10 years ago about feeling like I was born in the wrong time, in the wrong place and probably in the wrong body. 10 years later the only thing that’s different is I finally have a recording of it I like. I think what’s taken me so long to put it out is a fear of how simple and nonsensical it is, but now that’s a lot of what I listen to. I love to hear all the freaks making two minute songs about rejecting cultures they never really fit into and building their own little worlds instead.” ‘Yip Yip Yow’ reinforces Rose’s singular artistic vision built upon reinvention, exploration and a penchant for the eccentric.

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‘Tell Me What You Want’ chronicles conflicting feelings nearing the end of a relationship. Although the album largely deals with regret and grief, loss and change, shame and the inevitability of pain, on ‘Tell Me What You Want’ Roseʼs impish humour pops up unexpectedly: “Iʼm beating my head / Against the dashboard of your compact car / Just tell me what you want / Testing testing / Is this thing on? / Boy, youʼre gonna hate this song / Tell me what you want.” It showcases the kind of dark comedy with which weʼve become familiar in their catalogue, fusing upbeat melodies with hilariously deflating lyrics.

Caroline says: “When I listen to this I really feel for myself during that time. My head was like a cesspool of voices trying to tell me what to do. You know, the end of a relationship can be so confusing. There are all these emotions swirling around and really no handbook. You realise when all your attempts to connect with your partner aren’t working, you either have to find a way to stick it out or leave… and both options suck. I guess this song is about being in that pickle of desperation, between trying to protect yourself and feeling the immense guilt and regret of walking away from someone you love.”

Caroline has worked with director Sam Bennett on The Art of Forgetting short film, which is a loose recreation of real life events. Each of the filmʼs three chapters weave together a story of Rose navigating a transformative heartbreak. The ‘Tell Me What You Want’ video is a chapter of the film; which picks up where the ‘Miami’ video ends.

Caroline says, “It’s strange to recreate things that happened in the past, in the places where they happened, because they are obviously not the same as they were. I was trying to put my finger on this feeling and someone mentioned the Brazilian Portuguese word ʻsaudade,ʼ a sensation that blends nostalgia, melancholy, desire and longing all in one. It was this but (literally) through the lens of a simulation.”

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Speaking about ‘The Doldrums’ Caroline says: “‘The Doldrums’ was the song I wrote when I was realising I had basically no understanding of self-compassion. It’s about the voice inside my head that blames me for everything that’s ever gone wrong, mostly things out of my control. My idea of rebirth and reformation at the time was killing off my old self and finding a new one, rather than simply being kind to myself… not because I didn’t want to be, but because I didn’t really know how.”

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Rose is an artist known for their wit and satirical storytelling, but for the first time, with The Art of Forgetting, Roseʼs music teems with raw, intense emotion. With no guard up this time, they present the type of confessional honesty we’ve only previously caught glimpses of in their work. Of course, Roseʼs impish humour does pop up unexpectedly amidst themes of regret and grief, loss and change, shame and the inevitability of pain.

‘Miami’ is an acoustic-centred track whose chorus of squealing guitars and bombastic drums seems to all but burst out of the speakers. Rose explains: “I’m not one to shy away from drama, and so this was a perfect opportunity to really bring out every ounce of desperation and anger and all those confusing emotions that happen after a big heartbreak.”

The ‘Miami’ video, starring Rose playing a version of themself alongside Massima Bell, was directed by Sam Bennett, and shot at the Austin Motel, Sagebrush, and a sound stage in Austin, and continues Roseʼs run of theatrical, storyline driven videos. “For the ʻMiamiʼ video, I was mainly focused on what would be the most effective way to move people in regards to the two characters and how they interact,” says Rose. “Because this is a sort of loose recreation of some things in my life it was important to me to interpret the feeling of that time as accurately as we could within 4 minutesʼ time. Sam, who is a dear friend of mine and brilliant director, thought a great way to capture that fever-dream-like quality was to create a lot of movement with a continuous shot. He showed me different lenses and cameras to use and we ultimately went with an anamorphic, Old Hollywood-esque feel, which gives it that nostalgia thinking back on a time past.”

The Art of Forgetting:

1. Love / Lover / Friend
2. Rebirth
3. Miami
4. Better Than Gold
5. Everywhere I Go I Bring the Rain
6. The Doldrums
7. The Kiss
8. Cornbread
9. Stockholm Syndrome
10. Tell Me What You Want
11. Florida Room
12. Love Song For Myself
13. Jill Says
14. Where Do I Go From Here?

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