Lawrence, Kansas resident Taryn Miller is the founder and spearhead of Your Friend, a young but thriving project that is seeing a new wave of success with their first full length, Gumption. Miller is no stranger to the local music community, and has been releasing music locally and globally for over three years. After the release of their first EP, Jekyll/Hyde, Domino picked up the group and rereleased the EP. Domino is also behind this January 29th release of Gumption.
Your Friend released the album to a large, loving crowd at Liberty Hall in Lawrence on January 28th. Playing alongside the three piece Rush and Styx lovechild from Lawrence, Major Games, they created an atmosphere of community and warmth. Tayrn was flanked by four additional band members, all of whom complimented her gentle, spacey guitar. They melded together tracks from Jekyll/Hyde alongside the entirety of Gumption, beginning the night with the first single of the full length, the gorgeous and stacked “Heathering,” and closing the night out with an encore of Miller playing solo followed by the full group on “Peaches,” a track from the EP and arguably one of their most known tracks.
Gumption is an album that sweeps you up, it is ambient indie folk-rock layered thick with synth, bass, percussion, and harmonies, all intermingled with looping and meditative guitar. It has a lovely balance of tangible sound and shrouding of uplifting and dark, contemplative melodies. Thematically, Miller dives into a lot of themes applicable to folks in their 20s, but these are also universally found truths. For example, the thought that we may not like the person we truly are, or become the person we expected to. But there is still beauty in this, and through the pain and the growth, Miller finds truly beautiful ways to translate her human experience with Gumption.
Recommended If You Like: Alex G, DeYarmond Edison, CS Luxem, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Recommended Tracks: 1 (Heathering), 6 (Gumption), 9 (Who Will I Be in the Morning)
Do Not Play: None
Written by Kayci Lineberger on 02/09/16