Ironically, dream pop holds no pretence. Yes, its inimical branding, tendency towards the predictable, and unfortunate affiliation with pompous morons has somewhat tarnished the genre’s public summation. Yet, amidst all the ethereal claptrap extends an olive branch of novelty. It’s simple in its intentions: to allow your organs to grow arms and swim from limb to limb. When done correctly, it has the potential to envelope the mind and set it spiralling like a full cycle washing spin. And DIIV’s Oshin encapsulates this dizziness, this spinning, with all the primitive gusto of the blogosphere behind them.
Formerly Dive, Brooklyn four-piece DIIV delicately tread on the trends of their predecessors, embracing the husk of kraut and 4AD laden psyche pop, while delivering polite nods to the premature noise rock from 80’s Seattle. Conducted by front-man and assumed ‘musical provocateur,’ Z. Cole Smith, the group have recently slapped the contract cuffs on NY’s Captured Tracks – responsible for previous dreamy signings including Wild Nothing and Smith’s more established act, Beach Fossils. After initially opening the blogger floodgates with a string of solo releases, Smith recruited a fully live ensemble to aid in the production of Oshin; thirteen surprisingly brief halcyon bursts of ambient vitality.
With a reverberated snare snap, DIIV begin their distant effectual lulling. Opening track Druun oscillates around simple chordal modes and overlapping melodic licks much akin to early Creation Records psychedelic rock. But unlike many of DIIV’s contemporaries, the sonic beauty does not dwell in its own self-indulgence. Smith has taken the ‘less is more’ concept to an almost satirical extreme. Your eyes deftly creep to the upper lids until the moment surpasses, only to be swiftly greeted with yet another audible nadir to climb.
Human constructs intricate interplays between guitar lines as punchy drum algorithms scratch like nails to paper, and all in a babyish timing of two minutes fifty seconds (falling just short of typical pop format). Follow’s clean sweeping tremolo accompanied by Smith’s sincere vocal hushes assemble an almost utopian landscape, albeit for a mere two minutes forty five seconds. It’s hard to distinguish whether DIIV have a true knack of knowing when something has run its course or whether they are just plain lazy.
Nonetheless, a noises they achieve and they’re ones that swills from inception to impromptu fadeout. The broody bass bucking against scaled guitar slips in Air Conditioning and Past Lives sound like Slowdive on a cocktail of downers. The demure twinkle of Follow and Home sounds like Sparklehorse on a cocktail uppers. The distinct familiarity of How Long Have You Known and Sometime act a a sobering tonic that numb and alleviate. In its fleeting entirety, it becomes a perfect concoction of euphoria – like the transient inhalation of nitrous oxide.
Thorough with its production and undeniably addictive, Oshin is a record that shall remain stationary in any record player for months, possibly years, to come.
8/10
by Tom Watson
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