As one third of the songwriting muscle behind L.A. indie rock darlings Local Natives, Kelcey Ayer has often championed his band's softer, more somber side. On 2013's Hummingbird, it was Ayer's lilting voice and candid lyrics that made songs like "Colombia" and "Heavy Feet" stand out and stick with you. For last year's follow-up, Sunlit Youth, Ayer stood at the center of the album's more pensive tracks, like "Past Lives," which starkly opens with the line, "Save me from the prime of my life."

It makes sense then that Ayer's solo debut as Jaws of Love. would be a murkier, more keyboard-heavy affair. Written both before and shortly after Sunlit Youth, Jaws of Love.'s first album, titled Tasha Sits Close to the Piano, is made up of "a few tracks that, didn't work for Local Natives, and a good deal more that never kind of felt right for the band," Ayer says. "It's really the dark piano ballad record that I've always wanted to make."

The lead single from the project—premiering below—is also called "Jaws of Love." You can pre-order the project here and here.

As a kid growing up Southern California, Ayer gravitated towards the drums early on, and was later encouraged to play piano by his mom. "She was the one right-brain person in the family, so she thought making her kids play piano would make them better at school and at math," he says. As a pre-teen he balked at lessons, but grew to love the freedom piano offered him as a budding songwriter. "I think it was the first instrument that really struck me in this way where it opened up this world that I didn't know existed, where I could mess around and actually come up with something beautiful or weird or soothing or caustic, and it could all just be out of thin air."

In his teens, Ayer started the band that would eventually become Local Natives with friends Taylor Rice, Matthew Frazier, and Ryan Hahn. "Basically we were this high school band that sucked, and we got into college and messed with our sound and wrote all these songs and it felt really amazing, so we changed our band name and put out some music and things kind of started picking up," he recalls. Not long after they released their first proper album, 2009's Gorilla Manor, Ayer also met his future wife, Melanie.

Now, eight years and two extremely successful records later, Ayer has channeled his love of "dark, weird worlds" into a collection of love songs that explore the push-and-pull that comes with committing yourself to someone else forever. "In my mind, if you're going to write a love song it's usually about some sort of trial, something that went awry," he says. "I feel like I can't write a happy love song—I think it's cheesy immediately. Every time I dip my toe in the water I want to cut off my toe like a second later."

Photo by Loni Trock

Stylistically, the album finds Ayer's darker thoughts at the center of a mix of R&B grooves, moody electro-gospel, melodic folk, and at least one spastic burst of jazz saxophone. On "Microwaves," he pits his crystalline piano against a wall of synths as he belts lines like, "We are always pretending / That the other would rather be alone." Two tracks later, on "Everything.," that aforementioned sax rips through droplets of percussion as Ayer's voice trembles, "If we're all gonna die / Then it doesn't mean anything."

Guided by personal touchstones like James Blake, Radiohead, Beth Gibbons, and Portishead's Third, Ayer says he wanted to make a record that spoke to his tastes—something that sounded moodier, stranger, and "a little off." Of Tasha's ten tracks, it's lead single "Jaws of Love." which we're premiering below, that perhaps best encompasses this vision. The song opens with a singular piano. "In the jaws of love, hold me tighter / In the jaws of love, tear me apart," he sings, his voice resolute, but filled with desperation. Later, a synth kicks in, creating a theatrical swirl of noise that nearly swallows the singer whole.

"I think it took me until now to realize that I could be in this relationship that I am in and still be able to write love songs, because even if things are going really well, there's still all these things that can go wrong," he says. "Little miscommunications can snowball and then you're left like, 'Wait, what happened?!' It's those moments where life kind of proves how complicated love can be."

Jaws of Love. will make his live debut in Los Angeles on September 21 at Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Get tickets here.