Skip to main content

DIIV

78
DIIV

DIIV
Coming from the late-oughts dream-pop era, this indie guitar-based band first came on my radar with their debut album: 2012's Oshin. One of the most enjoyable & catchiest listens... 'til this day. DIIV started when Zachary Cole Smith got tired of being the touring guitarist for Beach Fossils so he decided to start his own band. The band name is a tribute to the Nirvana song "Dive." Right from the get-go (or is it gecko?) Cole new hot to intertwine guitar & bass in a way that took the listener on a passage of time- what I mean by that is that DIIV's music is more of a sensory-instrumental-trip. Put on your headphones- turn off your mind, relax & float down stream & enjoy the ride. It's gorgeous-melodic-fluid dream-pop. After a bout with heroin addiction & a fling with Sky Ferreira, Zachary Cole Smith got the band together & released 2016's Is The Is Are, a tremendous double-LP (single CD for those still buying {or the ultimate 17-track streamable rock-haze album}). 2019 gave us Deceiver, with this Brooklyn indie rock band proving they still got it with lead single "Skin Game." This band is at times like the heavier shoe-gaze band you always wished would get heavier! (*cough* *cough* Beach House.) DIIV's music shimmers & expands your mind into stratospheres you didn't even think music could take you to. High-five!
It's...
DIIV

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Björk

28 Björk Björk If Billie Holiday is an American treasure, well, if you were to put that treasure underwater, froze it, thawed it out centuries into the future and doused some acid & baking soda on it, out of that treasure chest would come Björk. Originally gaining fame in her home of Iceland with her band, the Sugarcubes, Björk was bound to break solo & she did just that with 1993's Debut . Following that was 1995's Post , 97's Homogenic , 2001's Vespertine, 2004's  Medúlla , 2007's Volta , 2011's Biophilia  (the first album where I was truly a fan), 2015's Vulnicura and 2017's Utopia . There's a lot to unpack there... you can't skip her first three or four albums, they're all amazing. I like Volta  just because it seems to be the loosest (and most fun) album she has. Vulnicura  was her break up album, with Björk expressing that the album reflects her feelings before and after her breakup and the healing process. Her legacy...
Post a Comment
Read more

Eels

91 EELS EELS After a couple of song-rich, keyboard-dominated albums released under the Man Called E moniker, Mark Everett morphed into the trio Eels with 1996’s [DreamWorks Records released] Beautiful Freak . At its best, the debut gave a trip-hop twist to the California singer/songwriter tradition; at its worst, it suggests one more bummed-out wise guy’s take on Beck’s collage-style rock. With a sense of humor that skews toward cynicism that’s alleviated occasionally by bouts of sincerity, Everett is not the likeliest subject to make a transcendent album about death. But he nearly pulls it off on 1998’s Electro-Shock Blues . The music is somber but not sedate, with bursts of saxophone, off-kilter orchestration, and outright noise evoking the turbulence beneath the deadpan vocals. The singer battles not only depression but also his penchant for irony, and his struggle to move beyond them makes for a fascinating if sometimes morbidly downcast listen. On 2000’s Daisies of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dimlite

75 Dimlite Dimlite I discovered Dimlite when I was at the Love Garden record store in Lawrence, KS. I was just flipping through the record collections, the vinyl, as you will & as you do and I came across the artwork for Dimlite’s Prismic Tops LP. This album was released in 2010. Now, I’m embarrassed to say, I was too broke at the time to afford the record. But that artwork stuck in my head and I went home and had to check out what that music sounded like… especially if the cover art was that trippy. So like a typical millennial, I went and found it on a streaming site. The music inside was just as titillating as the cover-art. Just like the cover-art: the music morphed and transcended upon itself- heading in every direction. Beats born out of beats. Dimlite is the project of Swiss producer Dimitri Grimm. He produces some jazz-odyssey-filled-hip-hop-beats. He first released the A/DD EP in 2003 and the full lengths (2005’s) Runbox Weathers and (2006’s) This Is Embracin...
Post a Comment
Read more