At eight years old, Jay Som—or Melina Duterte, to her family—had better taste in music than most adults.

“I started seriously listening to songs when I was really young,” she tells the Straight on the line from her Los Angeles home. “I liked a lot of tracks by Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Donnas. I expressed a lot of interest in playing guitar to my mom, and eventually she got me an acoustic for my birthday.”

The guitar would be the first instrument Duterte mastered. Next came the trumpet, bass, keyboards, drums, and vocals—and a penchant for songwriting. Penning her first tracks at the tender age of 12, the youngster made music throughout her teens as a way to deal with the angst of high school. Soon after graduation, she created Turn Into, a nine-track collection recorded in her bedroom that would put her on the radar of cult indie label Polyvinyl Records.

“Before I made that mix tape, I would write just for myself,” she says. “Instead of putting it out into the world on Bandcamp or SoundCloud, I was just sending the songs to friends—it was a very personal thing between a small circle. I uploaded what would be Turn Into on a whim—it was just meant to be a set of demos. Now I’ve had to become much more aware of my audience.”

Inking a deal with Polyvinyl in 2016, the artist set off on a coast-to-coast tour for seven months before settling down to create her first official album, Everybody Works. It took her just three weeks to complete.

“I’ve always written all the parts myself,” she says. “I think that’s my safe place—being on my own and being able to call the shots and make decisions, and ultimately trusting my gut. I need an outlet to express myself. I definitely find it hard sometimes to use my words to explain my emotions, whether they’re very sad or happy.

“I’m really proud of how fast I worked,” she continues. “Not in an ‘Oh, I did it so quickly’ kind of way. But last week I had the chance to listen through the full album, and I thought, ‘Damn—I can’t believe I did all of that in just a few weeks.’ I didn’t have any human interaction during that time. I was only drinking coffee. My schedule was all over the place. I was writing songs and feeling like a mad scientist. It’s exciting to me that I was able to create, record, produce, mix, and track all of it in that span of time.”

She’s not the only person impressed with the record. Charting in multiple Top 50 year-end lists for 2017, Duterte gained nods from the likes of Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Pitchfork with her sleek indie pop. It’s easy to see why. Gone are the rough edges of Turn Into, with the artist trading in her lo-fi aesthetic for bouncy, Yo La Tengo–inspired tracks like “One More Time, Please” and “Baybee”. Heavier numbers like grunge-fuelled “Take It” and “1 Billion Dogs” sport high-quality production without losing their endearing DIY feel.

“There was a pretty big buffer between Turn Into and Everybody Works,” she says. “On the first record, I was a 19-year-old kid who wrote about being angry and sad. That one was my emo album. Everybody Works is a more realized effort. I took a more traditional approach, and my playing is much sharper. Most of my ideas and tracks now are getting more cohesive, and they sound a little bit different. It’s natural for things to change, and I feel like I’m progressing.”

Jay Som plays the Biltmore Cabaret on Friday (February 16).