CLUNK Recommends | DIIV – The Fountain

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DIIV’s newest single ‘The Fountain’ is a reminder that the Brooklyn four-piece are once again not afraid to play between genres.

For all their brilliance DIIV have always been at the mercy of the English language, in the sense that to attempt to describe their music is to diminish their impact upon it. For example, if you were to try to describe 2019’s ‘Deceiver’ to a friend, you might be tempted to describe it as a grunge album. Similarly for 2024’s ‘Frog In Boiling Water’ you might say DIIV are a shoegaze band. But that misses all of DIIV’s carefully crafted nuance and texture; like taking a picture of a glorious sunset on your phone and realising afterwards that the camera just doesn’t do it justice.

So, on the precipice of their fifth album how do you try to describe DIIV? Part of the answer may lie in their latest track ‘The Fountain‘ and their new album’s title, which I shall now do a terrible job of trying to put into words.

In its first third, ‘The Fountain’ feels like a window into the heyday of Bluetooth sharing, evoking the slider-phone music era of the early 2000’s with a tinny intro that quickly takes on a cosmic quality. The root notes and turnarounds sprinkle a touch of the medieval about ‘The Fountain’ with neatly interspersed slides on to the high notes. The second third of the track sees DIIV jump into underground pop, where guitars jitter and chainsaw against Zachary Cole-Smith’s vocals. Next, the listener is transported to a grey landscape as midwestern-emo-sounding notes roll over ‘The Fountain’.

DIIV’s new album is titled ‘ZIRP!’ which is perhaps the best adjective we have at describing DIIV. One moment the listener is here, then the next they are transported there, falling with the band into a stream of dilated time- a trick they have honed for live shows too.

Yes, they are sometimes grunge, and they are sometimes also shoegaze. But what they really are is ‘ZIRP!’.

Listen to ‘The Fountain‘ here:

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Catch DIIV at the following:

*= with Interpol
^= with Basement

27/09 – Sao Paulo, Brazil @ Balaclava Fest
29/09 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Meadows
30/09 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom
02/10 – Toronto, CA @ Sobeys Stadium*
03/10 – Montreal, CA @ L’Olympia*
06/10 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE*
07/10 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre and Ballroom*
09/10 – Detroit, MI @ Masonic Jack White Theatre*
10/10 – Columbus, OH @ Kemba Live!*
11/10 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed*
13/10 – Chesterfield, MO @ The Factory*
15/10 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern*
16/10 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern*
17/10 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle*
20/10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Expo Hall^
21/10 – San Francisco, CA – Psyched! Fest
02/11 – Paris, FR – Pitchfork Music Festival
06/11 – Kortrijk, BE – Sonic City Festival
07/11 – London, UK – Pitchfork Music Festival

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