Kitty (fka Kitty Pryde) seemed to enter the digital world at a sort of attention apex. Were it released today, her mumble-rap hit “okay cupid” might briefly trend on Twitter or feature on a few TikToks before being swept into post-viral oblivion. But in 2012, the track’s woozy beat and Kitty’s bubbly, tossed-off delivery launched a modest career; she released EPs, played DIY shows, and moved to New York. For Kitty, though, rap was limiting, a box constructed by the hype machine. Following 2017’s Miami Garden Club, a synth-pop departure that met a tepid response, the self-produced Rose Gold is Kitty’s attempt to transcend her internet bubble.
Kitty has spent the past two years touring with her husband, Sam Ray, as one-half of the Pom Poms and a member of his band American Pleasure Club. In Rose Gold’s strongest moments, Kitty softens those groups’ rough edges—the shallow production of the Pom Poms’ day-glo EDM, the desperation of American Pleasure Club’s breathless lyricism—into low-stakes dance-pop that simmers just beneath the surface. Opener “Counting All the Starfish” has a bass drop, sure, but it’s blown out and fuzzy, like it’s being played underwater. Paired with a sparse drum beat and warbly synthesizer, it sounds like an eerie cross between The Twilight Zone and Boards of Canada. The production is thin, like a college kid experimenting with Ableton presets, but the style fits Kitty’s whispered, anxious vocals.
“The Window,” the only track featuring live instrumentation by American Pleasure Club, uses the winding post-rock affectations of latter-day emo to set up a wistful love song. As a rapper, Kitty had a lazy, sloping flow, blending one line into another as though she were simply too bored to enunciate. Here, as on the echoing dance track “Medicine,” that cadance works to her advantage, a hazy, breathy texture that seems to swim amid the instrumentation. In these moments, Rose Gold feels like a long-lost cousin to the brooding electronica of Arbutus Records, the Montreal label that fostered pop-forward avant-garde acts like Blue Hawaii, Majical Cloudz, and Grimes.
But Rose Gold also can feel like a bad résumé, showcasing too many skills and honing too few. The Miami Bass intro on “Look Demure” lasts less than 30 seconds before it’s replaced with a sparse and springy interlude, which is again usurped by a bubbly synthesizer. Each element jumps in before the last could make more than a momentary impression, overpowering the potential for danceable electro-pop. “Strange Magic” has the opposite problem, with an awkward synthline reminiscent of a trombone and a slow, halting pace.
Since releasing Miami Garden Club, Kitty has moonlighted as a video game soundtrack composer, a talent that shines through on the instrumental “Kitty’s Farm,” with its warm electric piano and shuffling beat, and “Don’t Panic Interlude,” which pairs guided meditations (“Breathe in, two, three, four/Breathe out, two, three, four”) with a mellow synth line. These songs sound almost like another internet phenomenon, “Lofi Hip Hop Radio - Beats to Relax/Study To,” the innocuous background music, popular among the gaming community, with just enough dynamism to keep the listener focused on the activity at hand.
In its prettiest moments, Kitty’s production is reminiscent of Mark Mothersbaugh’s charmingly understated score for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. But almost at every turn, it’s overshadowed by painfully straightforward lyricism. “B.O.M.B. (Peter)” finds Kitty doing her best cabaret impression, a schmaltzy, juvenile boast about her power over a client as a professional financial dominatrix: “That’s right I’m back on my bullshit/You’ll wear my footprints on your back/Call me a cab to the nearest bank.” “Mami” aims for a similar kind of sexual empowerment, but it’s hard to shake the Oedipal connotations as Kitty scolds a clingy lover: “Mommy got things to do/Mommy don’t like your tone.”
The playfully poignant closing track “Florida,” originally recorded in 2013, highlights the lyrical inadequacies of newer work. Kitty’s seamless flow and easy rhymes about escaping small-town life in her home state feel second nature: “I don't think I'll make it hanging here another day/I wanna get spirited away.” In these moments, Kitty again feels like a friend in a distant bedroom, conjuring a mix of aloofness and intimacy that resonates long after her viral stardom has faded.
