Until the middle of 2026, Kelsey Feral released music simply as Feral. That summer she switched her artist name across all platforms so that people looking for her work would actually turn it up.
She has a creative writing MFA from the University of California, Riverside and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and she also writes books, makes films and performs stand-up comedy. She first broke through among indie rock listeners in 2018 with her album, Trauma Portfolio. Her DIY punk track “Fuck the Bourgeoisie” has been streamed more than 1.5 million times on Spotify and landed on the soundtrack for the first season of We Were Liars on Amazon Prime in 2025. Kelsey’s 2025 EP, Overreacting, shuttles listeners between punk, country and other sounds.
Between 2023 and 2024, while Kelsey was doing her graduate degree, she dated a man working toward his PhD in Philosophy at the same university. After they split, Kelsey set out to make sense of this period of her life in her upcoming second album. This record, a collection of songs spanning baroque, alternative, experimental, dream and synth pop that call to mind Halsey, Ethel Cain, M83, Zella Day, BETWEEN FRIENDS, Erin LeCount and panicbaby, blends what she learned studying creative writing with the time she spent with him.
To begin writing this collection, Kelsey assembled 30 books her ex was either a huge fan of or used in his dissertation, a process that helped her interrogate their breakup through philosophy, as well as the arguments and self-justifications that can keep a person with the wrong partner far past the point they should have walked away.
The album’s earlier singles, “Turn You” and “Slip & Fall,” are now joined by “Pillowcase,” the single she released on 20 October 2026. A pop song sprinkled with dark humor, it deals in excuses and hindsight, and in realizing when it is time to leave. It is one of the album’s less philosophical songs.
The song started from an embarrassing detail: her ex owned a single set of sheets, shared them with other women, and did not wash them before she arrived. She told him this was disrespectful. Eventually, Kelsey got him another set. “I had this radical idea that a 30 year old man should own more than one set of sheets,” she says. “Looking back I just cringe so hard that I actually thought that was a nice gift to get him. Like girl, stand up, that’s not a cute gift, that’s a reason to leave.” Even with the spare set, he still didn’t wash them before her visits. She did eventually end things, sparing herself what she calls the real humiliation (being with someone who disrespects you the rest of your life).
PR: Decent Music PR
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