6 minute read
GUSTAF
from DIY, October 2021
by DIY Magazine
Finding the sweet spot between emo and hyperpop, the Aussie teen is already reaching for the stratosphere. Words: Ims Taylor.
daine
“I’d hope that they were an alien,” daine decides, reflecting on how she’d describe herself to someone who’d never heard her music. “And I would show them all of my cover art, and I would just give them the words ‘future emo’.”
She might be aiming to send her hyperpop-indebted genre clash into extraterrestrial realms but, back on planet Earth, the 18-year-old Australian has a fully-realised vision for what’s to come, too. “Music and visuals are equal to me, I don’t think that music’s more important, which is really bad to say!” she laughs, “because I am a musician, and I’m meant to be all about the music, but I’m not. It’s more holistic, for me.
“When I’m writing songs I use visual cues, I never write about personal topics. Like ‘Salt’ and ‘Bloody Knees’: they’re quite graphic, they’re more emotionally evocative,” she continues. “I want my music to paint a picture. Sometimes it’s just emotional vomit, but my favourite songs are definitely the ones where I’m painting visually with words.”
Apart from the visuals, daine notes that being “super emo” is the red thread that ties her music together. “I think I’ve always written music like that; I’ve always been doing something a bit emo-leaning, even when it’s not super obvious, and I feel so blessed that I have quite an emo fanbase. I wasn’t expecting it at all, but if you know, you know!”
Now, the singer is moving further towards the marvellous meeting point of emo and hyperpop with every release, helped along most recently by one very important member of her fanbase – Bring Me The Horizon icon Oli Sykes. “I had no idea he even followed me!” she says giddily, “and then we finally did a song, which was really fucking crazy.”
That collaboration - September’s gamechanging ‘Salt’ - marks the beginning of a turn towards the alternative for the singer that’s seen her hailed as a new genre-hybrid icon, taken simultaneously under the wing of 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady and Oli’s rock kings. daine, however, is taking it in her stride. “I forget people gas me up so much! I just wake up every day and walk my dog and watch TV… It’s very insular, launching a career from my bedroom, but it’s kinda cool.
“The goal is to create a little world,” she enthuses. “I don’t really like solid routines, and I always wish that I existed in a fantasy world, so I think music is my space to create that and live that. I want it to be an escapist space for other people; I find it really flattering when people tell me they find my music and visuals really immersive.”
And as she continues her steady real world ascent, what’s daine got coming for us? “There’s definitely a big jump in evolution. I go through eras, so I’ll get back to making crazy shit soon,” she grins, “but some songs are gonna be coming out that feel very nostalgic and teenagery. It’s like, post-hyperpop, very futuristic, but youthful. I think there’s an innocent quality to it.” DIY
BUZZ FEED
All the buzziest new music happenings, in one place.
HIT THE ROAD
Ahead of the release of her new EP ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’ on 5th November, Holly Humberstone has returned with new track ‘Scarlett’, an ode to her best friend. In the accompanying video - which you can watch on diymag.com right now - Holly sits on the back of a truck being driven by her pal in a visual encapsulation of the song’s themes: drive far away from all the shit in your life.
“It’s a fuck you to the guy that was going out with my closest friend Scarlett and it was written as they were breaking up,” Holly explains. “The relationship was totally one-sided and lasted for years. I wanted to write this one from her point of view. It’s a pretty positive song as it’s about her finally letting go, realising his many faults, and taking back her life.”
BOYS TO THE YARD LEARN TO FLY
12 months after their brilliantly exciting EP ‘BRAINWASH MACHINE SETTING’, and after years of marking themselves out as one of the most exciting emerging punk bands around, Kent trio Lady Bird have finally unveiled details of their debut album. ‘WE’ will come out later this year via Alcopop!, and you can watch the video for first single ‘Factory Fool’ on diymag.com now.
Of the new song, the band say: “‘Factory Fool’ reminds us all of that sound. The ringing of the school bell which tells us when to eat, when to speak, when to work, when to move to the next teacher’s classroom - whose script remains written by his master’s voice, the same as from state schools through to Eton. Ding ding, back in the ring, toe to toe, walk the line…”
Following a string of buzzy singles and sold out vinyl releases, Leeds trio Yard Act will release highly-anticipated debut LP ‘The Overload’ on 7th January. Its title track, described by the band as “an overture to the album”, is available to stream on diymag.com right now.
“Lyrically, I think it’s a record about the things that we all do,” says frontman James Smith. “We’re all so wired into the system of day to day that we don’t really stop and think about the constructs that define us.” Sounds like lofty stuff!
THE PLAYLIST
Every week on Spotify, we update DIY’s Neu Discoveries playlist with the buzziest, freshest faces. Here’s our pick of the best new tracks:
TASHA 'PERFECT WIFE'
The first single from Chicago-based artist and poet Tasha's new album 'Tell Me What You Miss The Most', new song 'Perfect Wife' is an ode to the simple, devastating pleasure of true love. The music - an indie-rock slow dance that manages to pull off both grandeur and intimacy at once - perfectly encapsulates the heady rush that comes with an all-encompassing crush.
PIGLET DAN’S NOTE
Swelling from plaintive beginnings to a full explosion of strings, layered vocals and background twinkles, ‘dan’s note’ is both intimate and dense, the end result a sort of pretty cacophony of ideas firing off simultaneously. The nom de plume of Belfast-born musician Charlie Loane, piglet has already been championed by Porridge Radio, who recently collaborated with him on two new tracks; his latest shows the musician is more than capable of going it alone too.
TSHA I KNOW
After sprinkling a couple of tracks throughout the summer to toast the return of clubs, London DJ and producer TSHA has shared ‘I Know’, the final track to round out her new EP ‘OnlyL’. As we've come to expect from TSHA, 'I Know' is a catchy earworm that has one foot in the club and one reaching for the charts. Chopped up, sampled vocals circle around handclaps and a blissful beat. It sounds like savouring the last drops of summer.
GRENTPEREZ - CHERRY WINE
A far classier song than an ode to those potent little bottles of Cherry B you get in the newsagent should warrant, Sydney-based 19-year-old grentperez’s latest places the singer firmly in the lane marked ‘nice boys who listen to Rex Orange County’. Full of lilting rhythms and spanish guitars, ‘Cherry Wine’ is a song to serenade your beau with, ideally on a sunset beach, preferably whilst drinking something much, much more palatable.
