Gumption

Taryn Miller, aka Your Friend, is pleased to share the first taste of new music since last year's debut EP, in the form of her debut full-length, titled Gumption,

Since the release of her debut self-recorded EP, Jekyll/Hyde, in early 2014, Taryn Miller has experienced many firsts as an artist - her first tour (with Courtney Barnett), her first SXSW (in 2014, in support of the EP release), and her first time working in a proper studio with a producer. And now, the 24-year-old who resides in Lawrence, Kansas and makes music under the moniker Your Friend, begins the process of another first - the release of her debut full length album, Gumption.

Miller began writing the songs that would become Gumption at her studio space and apartment in Lawrence, Kansas after returning from touring in mid-2014. As a part of the album's process, Miller acquired a field recorder that she used to explore sound from a familiar place. She took it to her family farm in Dexter, KS and drove around, dipping her senses into childhood nostalgia.

From there, she started recording with producer Nicolas Vernhes (The War on Drugs, Deerhunter) at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, which helped Your Friend fulfill a penchant for drones, loops and found sounds. "I paid attention to textures," Miller says. "I was trying to remove myself from an approach that I had followed before, but still wanted to bring in that melodic element that is most inherent to me, and marry it with a more sonically meditative landscape."

Gumption deals with the dualities and nuances of human interaction, and questions how much we, as individuals, are responsible for in the ways we are perceived. It's a record of courage, as its title suggests - of having the willingness to make necessary shifts, and to have a sense of self-awareness that ultimately leads to growth.