Casey Dienel – Seventeen
Today Massachusetts-based songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Casey Dienel shares “Seventeen,” the newest single from My Heart is an Outlaw,
Dienel’s seventh album and first-ever studio-recorded release, out October 17, 2025 via Jealous Butcher Records.
Dienel also shares plans to celebrate the album’s release with an intimate live performance in Los Angeles to take place December 13th at Scribble.
Perspective is everything. The opening synthscape of “Seventeen” is a synaptic constellation as futuristic and expansive as it is reflective. It reaches for the stars that may still be in our eyes. Dienel’s free spirit takes us on a filmic tour of the psyche, part Dirty Dancing finale, part Wild at Heart fever dream, minus the snakeskin jacket—but the past still bites. From the salvo of a distant bar night in Galway to sliding-door encounters studded with one-liners like “the luck that lasts is the luck you make,” “Seventeen” slips between timelines with cinematic ease. Four-on-the-floor disco drums anchor soaring strings and melodic lines that braid experience with expectation. We’re reaching for ecstasy. We’re reaching for oblivion. We’re “at the top of the Western world,” a plastic flute of champagne in hand.
According to Dienel:
“What a strange time to be releasing happy music. Yet, the darker things get, the tighter I cling to joy. Not the vibes-only, rosé-all-day variety, but what Audre Lorde calls ‘a form of energy for change.’
Writing ‘happy’ has never come easily to me. Still, this one comes closest to capturing joy as I honestly experience it: Taking the world in your arms, as complicated and messy as it is, and finding beauty in it anyway. Fleeting, life-giving, infectious. Always over too soon.
There’s no fiction in this song. Everything I describe more or less happened. I stopped in Galway on a solo trip. At Tig Cóilí, a charismatic man out-sang the whole bar, invited me to see Connemara, then ghosted me in the morning. I took his recommendation and drove there anyway. On the way, I narrowly escaped being run off by a horde of sheep; on the hike, I met someone else. Sliding doors. It reminded me how joy often arrives tangled up with disappointment, risk, and surprise—that a stranger can briefly cross your path and change you forever. Any of us could be that stranger for someone else.
The string melody has been with me since the earliest demo seven years ago, and hearing it with a chamber quartet still gives me chills. While tracking the rhythm section live, we let the tape roll for eleven minutes. Schatz and I agreed it felt too good to call ‘cut.’ Life’s too short to constrain ourselves to three and a half minutes. I want you to stay in the feeling a little longer, too.”
My Heart is an Outlaw marks a triumphant return after eight years away. Written across several years and recorded at Altamira Sound in Los Angeles, Figure 8 Recording in New York, and Chamber of Commerce in Vermont, the album delves deep into themes of freedom, queerness, memory, and radical presence.
The record was brought to life with an impressive ensemble of collaborators: producer Adam Schatz (Japanese Breakfast, Neko Case), bassist Spencer Zahn, guitarists Carly Bond (Meernaa) and meg duffy (Hand Habits), drummer Max Jaffe, mixing engineer Jake Aron (Solange, Snail Mail), and mastering engineer Heba Kadry (Björk, Sade). Breaking from their usual DIY approach, Dienel embraced the power of the collective — an experiment in trust, connection, and openness.
The album’s August announcement was accompanied by the release of lead single “Your Girl’s Upstairs” which came with a video directed by Alex Basco-Koch featuring behind the scenes footage of the album recording.
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