Soporific Heaven: The Beautifully Hazy Music of DIIV

DIIV

At the beginning of 2015, my old friend Mahesh referred a band to me by emailing me a link to a YouTube video.  He wrote, " I know how much you are into the shoegaze thing, so I thought you might like this band."

Oshin

I took one listen and directly downloaded the whole album.  The band was Brooklyn's DIIV (pronounced "Dive"), and the album was their 2012 debut album "Oshin".  I immediately liked it immensely.  This is really "my kind of music", if there is such a thing.  Definitely taking a page from the early '90s shoegaze scene, DIIV is at the forefront of the rebirth of this sound - swirly, distorted guitars creating a sonorous, delirious and dreamy soundscape with soft, barely mumbled lyrics.  Rather than going for the wall of sound thing that most shoegaze bands go for, DIIV takes a different approach.  Founder, singer, and songwriter, Zachary Cole Smith plucks a constant melody on his lead guitar, fed through tremendous amounts of reverb, creating a playful, less intense sound that sort of reminds me of The Feelies.

Their debut album took the scene by storm with a sound that was earnest, real, unpretentious, and received a ton of critical acclaim - a masterpiece of jangle pop with an upbeat bounce paired with Smith's subdued lyrics filling the spaces.  There are very strong songs on this release, the strongest of which is "Doused", the primary single.  It starts out with a dominant bass which sets the tone for a infectious rhythm which is soon joined by Smith's flitting and billowing lead guitar until his impressionistic vocals and lyrics take shape:

"Never had you run so far but you really gotta get away

You know it in the nighttime running to it

Caught a rising star but then you let it drop into

The ocean now the water's running through it"

Sky Ferreira

"Oshin (Subsume)" carries the reverb to a point that the texture is a smear across a barely needed drum beat.  "Follow" and "Sometime" are sparkles on a surface of water that rouse such wistful feelings in me.  The album finishes off gracefully with the muted "Home".  The album was a really great start and introduction to this band.  My main complaint about this record is that it is monochromatic.  Most of the songs kind of sound the same.  But I liked it enough that I was pretty excited when I got news earlier this year that DIIV was releasing a sophomore record.

DIIV had taken a four year hiatus between albums, and it seemed that they were exorcising demons.  Smith, along with his girlfriend, artist Sky Ferreira, was arrested for heroin possession, and, following a stint in rehab, he went into the studio and pounded out a seventeen song opus.  The result is less bubbly, darker, more brooding.  And Smith created the first album I downloaded in 2016, and definitely my favorite record of the year, so far.

Is The Is Are

The album, called "Is The Is Are", starts out with "Out Of Mind" which really sounds like it could be lifted from the previous album with its unconcerned lilt, but, halfway through the song, there comes a mild keening, a subtle urgency that seemed lacking in their previous release.  This mounting exigency continues with "Under the Sun", "Bent (Roi's Song)", and "Dopamine".  It sizzles with "Blue Boredom", sung by Sky Ferriera, doing a great impression of Kim Gordon on "Shadow of a Doubt".

The next song is "Valentine", which makes in onto every playlist or mix CD I make lately, with its swirly, opiate haze, Smith's lyrics hinting at his heroin addiction:

"Medicine for free

If you’d only asked for me

I’d be a better animal

In every other little way"

"Yr Not Far" is one of my favorite songs, and it is an homage to The Cure, specifically to the haunting melody of "A Forest".  The similarity is undeniable.  I have listened to the songs back to back.  I don't lament it; the fact that Smith's influences come out in his music is actually kind of nice.  Like his love affair with noise gods, Sonic Youth, in the song "Mire (Grant's Song)".  The feedback of the guitars and the desperate discordance of the vocal harmonies makes this song all their own, though.

Zachary Cole Smith

"Take Your Time" and "Is The Is Are" return to some of their previous waggishness.  But "Incarnate Devil" sucks us back into the feverish drug haze.  There are a couple of unnecessary outros and intros.  But otherwise, every song on here is great.  One of my my favorite tracks is the second to the last song called "Dust", which is supposedly their best song live.  It starts with a similar tune to their first single, "Doused", but halfway through the song it dissolved into a wall of sound and distortion that is uncharacteristic to their sound, but more what people expect when they think of shoegaze.  But the result is beautiful.  The album finishes out with the languid "Waste of Breath".

The first album was alright.  The second one is a masterpiece.  It's kind of cliche for heroin junkies to make masterful art.  I really hope they get the help that they need.  But for now, I am glad that something achingly beautiful came out of their pain.

Please check out this album.  You won't regret it.