Alaina May returns with Casual, her most fully formed single yet

Brooklyn-based queer artist Alaina May is back with her most fully realised single yet

Casual is her first release since 2023 and the point where three years of artistic development click into place. Produced with indie rock duo TOLEDO, it is out now.

Alaina May grew up in a conservative suburb and spent her early life conforming to the expectations of those around her. When she moved to Boston for college she found space to build a more authentic sense of self, and her music has been tracing that journey ever since.

Casual is her first single since 2023 and the most confident thing she has released. Her 2023 single Keeps Me Up leaned toward Phoebe Bridgers territory. By 2024 she was channelling a more electronic, Billie Eilish-adjacent approach. Casual is something else — all the pieces assembled into something that sounds distinctly like her.

The single was produced by indie rock duo TOLEDO, with whom she has been working since late 2025. The production is dream-lit and spacious: reverberating guitar, piano, a drum kit that doubles in pace through the chorus while May's vocal stays measured and close. She lands somewhere between Hope Sandoval and Phoebe Bridgers without belonging to either.

The song is about limerence. About being completely self-aware of a pattern and still being pulled into it. May has said: "You can be completely self-aware — naming the pattern, recognising the push and pull — and still not be able to stop yourself from getting pulled in. It's that tension between wanting something light and realising that, at my core, I'm just not wired for casual."

May uses her songwriting to explore her identity as a queer woman and to reflect on today's complex romantic landscape. Casual is the first of several planned singles this year.

Stream Casual on all platforms now.