Rose Hotel Shares New Song 'Cool' From 'A Pawn Surrender: Deluxe'

Atlanta-based artist Rose Hotel is set to release a digital-only deluxe version of her 2024 label debut A Pawn Surrender next Friday, January 24, via New West Records imprint Strolling Bones (Pylon Reenactment Society, Spencer Thomas). A Pawn Surrender: Deluxe includes alternative versions of album tracks "Not Like That" and "Illusion Anyway," with the latter featuring Atlanta psychedelic folk quartet Improvement Movement, as well as two new songs, "cool" and "Gas." "Cool" is out now on all streaming platforms.

Of the new song, Reynolds offers, "This tune was one that we worked on during the initial recording sessions for A Pawn Surrender, but couldn’t get it quite right at the time. Lo and behold, instead of a live band approach, this song needed a simple drum machine and lots of swirly reverb and flutes for its world to become fully realized. It's a dreamy, romantic take on what it feels like to hope that someone will stick around even when they start to witness your flaws."

Named one of the Best Albums of 2024 by Paste Magazine, the release of A Pawn Surrender saw singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jordan Reynolds claiming her agency with a 10-song set of nuanced indie-rock songcraft that pulls from a palette of psychedelic shimmer and folk influence as she explores relationships, feminine rage, lust, temptation, blissful ignorance, frightening apathy, delusions, and illusions. BrooklynVegan describes the album as "a mix of slacker indie rock, folk, and psychedelia that kinda reminds me of the early Courtney Barnett EPs," and Paste praises, "The one-two punch of 'Not Like That' and 'King and a Pawn' in the middle of the album and closer 'Illusion Anyway' should be popping up on Spotify playlists for anyone listening to indie music, but I don’t control the algorithms. This is one you’re probably going to have to queue up for yourself."

Reynolds began playing keys for Kentucky psych-rock band Buffalo Rodeo at 19 and has built a career as a side musician for acts like Faye Webster, Neighbor Lady, Susto, and She Returns From War since self-releasing Rose Hotel’s I Will Only Come When It’s a Yes in 2019. Reynolds co-produced A Pawn Surrender with Atlanta-based engineers Damon Moon (Bathe Alone) and Graham Tavel (Material Girls) and tapped acclaimed Athens, Georgia producer Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, S.G Goodman, Stella Donnelly) for mixing and additional production. The group of studio musicians she assembled nods to her time spent in DIY scenes throughout the Southeast, collectively known for their work with Orville Peck, Margo Price, S.G. Goodman, Caitlin Rose, Rich Ruth, Neighbor Lady, Night Palace, and more.

While Rose Hotel's 2019 debut presented a coming-of-age tale, A Pawn Surrender nourishes the garden of adulthood with a cohesive but genre-spanning approach that Reynolds was empowered to achieve through a chess metaphor: 

“I was playing a lot of chess when I wrote this album, so I started to think about these songs as if they were all different pieces on the board representing varying aspects of my songwriting, personality, and experience. Each piece has its own specific purpose and its own strength to utilize, but you can't play the game with only your queen or your knights, or whatever. That became such a comforting idea and ethos to operate within – not just accepting variety but finding its inherent value. I went into the studio without any fear of being all over the board. I wanted to be limitless in letting my influences shine through the music in different ways. The throughline of Rose Hotel is my lyricism and my voice, but musically, I wanted to stretch out."

Rose Hotel On Tour:

Feb 20 - Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar*
Feb 21 - Cincinnati, OH @ The Ludlow Garage*
Feb 23 - The Pyramid Scheme @ Grand Rapids, MI*
Feb 25 - Turntable @ Indianapolis, IN*

March 26-30 - Treefort Music Fest - Boise, ID
*supporting Susto

Photo credit: Logan White

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