DIIV

“Horsehead”

I’ve seen The middle of five foot Airtight walls and

I’ve told The setting sun a joke He laughed his head right off’

Horsehead   It’s never quite enough I wanna breathe in And never breathe back out Horsehead I’m never quite enough I wanna breathe in And never breathe back out

I sat In a slump so my shadow Sat slumped too

Then I laid among the rocks and stones Fuck it all

Horsehead   It’s never quite enough I wanna breathe in And never breathe back out Horsehead I’m never quite enough I wanna breathe in And never breathe back out

Wake up, throw it all away, If nothing’s changed, nothing changes Wake up, throw it all away, Everything is nothing anyway

We’re each the rotten squall At the center of it all

“Like Before you were Born”

the wind fans deadpan, we plummet through the wake well, that’s my last mistake

birds land then stand and fly astray they’d do that anyway

It’s just Like before you were born Through that peaceful moment to like before you were born

I’m an old man I tell the same old sun “I get it, i’ve done it, i’m done.”

Cars breeze past winding through the calm I guess their lives go on

It’s just Like before you were born Through that peaceful moment to like before you were born

“Skin Game”

one afterthought on a skin game ‘i took it as prescribed’

vow do no harm buy the cure but first you buy the disease

I can see you’ve had some struggles lately Hey man, i’ve had mine too

fighting to get through the door But i can’t live like this anymore

they gave us wings to fly But then they Took away the sky

Well, what you want? ‘Serve me’ Sell me to the spoon I’m cashing in falling out tear me down hang me up

strung out to please the King in Metropolitan’s Sackler wing I can help you it’s how i help myself

I know you’ve had some struggles lately You know i’ve had mine too

fighting to get through the door But I can’t live like this anymore

They gave us wings to fly But then they Took away the sky

I wanna be your doll But i won’t be your dog anymore

You gave us wings to fly But then you Took away the sky

sunken ceiling and a sideways grin we lived to use and and we used to live crack a window get some life in you

holding in coughs, hiding my head “everybody respects the dead” I can help you it’s how i help myself

sunken ceiling and a sideways grin we lived to use, we used to live crack a window get some life in me

“Between Tides”

On and on, the clock was wrong ‘You’ve been numb so long’ His words they lapped an endless rote ‘It’s gonna rain, build a boat’

On masterstrokes of ebb and flow Down the drain the current flows All along the alpenglow It seems my pain was self-imposed

I’m just waiting for the storm to die out I’m just waiting for the storm to die

On and on, in memory You’ll have my company Mountainbuilding, anodynes Both in handfuls at a time

I asked the trees why they grow they said it’s all we know I apologize to all i see For everything i used to be

on and on, the clock was slow Down the drain, we surely know How to drink the oceans up? ‘Better start with a cup.’

I’m just waiting for the storm to die out I’m just waiting for the storm to die

“Taker”

You watched my lips make the promise i betrayed the years i lived in vain chasing the pain with pain

Stand down

There’s oil in my name my tongue flickers like a wilting flame

Lay it all out the path of wreckage that i cut all in want of what?

Who were you to believe? Your lying eyes or me? ‘I won’t let them tie to you The shit i put you through’

Stand down

There’s oil in my name my tongue flickers like a wilting flame

Lay it out the path of wreckage that i cut all in want of what?

“For the guilty”

love, revenge, love, redemption Rise and fall, start and stall

cash and prizes You heard them say Are for the guilty And stay that way But how are you today?

Curtained in with arms outspread I was a stranger in our bed Shut away and getting thin I was a stranger in my skin

Old friends Consequences Forgive yourself Starting now No matter how Things may change Don’t turn away you’re present now But the past is in your blood

I’ve been Curtained in with arms outspread I was a stranger in our bed Shut away and getting thin I was a stranger in my skin

Curtained in with arms outspread I was a stranger in our bed Shut away and getting thin We were both strangers in our skin

“The Spark”

Sit at the foot of my bed She said like a ghost Watch a boat in a cove Lose hope, who knows?

Here there’s a shadow A girl in the shade Wants to find someone So what, who knows?

In our past we were such a mess We did our best only Time will tell

it’s our past It’s a wreck We do our best and the spark will glow

Sit at the foot of my bed She said like a ghost Watch a boat in a cove Lose hope, who knows?

As summer fades, waves carry your soft knowing gaze Marigolds in a row So what, who knows?

In our past we were such a mess We did our best only Time will tell

it’s our past It’s a wreck We do our best and the spark will glow

Letting go, the lines we tow Surrender what we think we know Letting go, the lines we tow tending to the spark up close Letting go, the lines we tow Patience pulls the spark up close

‘Lorelei’

dog-star, ram, and pomegranate fox swam and swans descant

Entranced In an awful dance for Lorelei

Pine box or mantle top circe’s humdrum song Is pleading for help at my overcoat of clay

forget my youthful sins, Lay waste to my transgressions scream that melody in vain my lorelei

“Blankenship”

armageddon is a product And one we choose to buy Dwell on that for a moment With Paradise on fire

I guess it’s all the way, Blankenship Children lead the cry You sold them all away, Blankenship With thirty years of lies

Who sold us the dominion over swine that smell their knife The vicious creature thin and dying On a scrap of melting ice

The earth is ownerless Blankenship Children lead the cry You sold them all away, Blankenship With thirty years of lies

I should have treated you better Blankenship the lives you weaponize You sold them all away Blankenship With silver-plated eyes

Think of your sons and daughters Laid in ashen water Sirens louder and louder ‘destroy those who destroy the earth’

“Acheron”

This heart-pounding day has finally arrived All my living footfalls sigh like the night, outside the war between illusion and truth I found wisdom lain among putrid fruit of Desperation, cold wild gift of youth Urgent and dead-eyed

Hate the god i don’t believe in Heaven’s just a part of hell Hate the one Who wouldn’t save us Shikata ga nai

In the blue mist death has finally closed in All my gasping words at war with the wind Worshipping the fear of hell left me lost i’ve found something for us, souls who have crossed Charon’s torrent cold spiked black with frost ashen and dead-eyed

Hate the god i don’t believe in Heaven’s just a part of hell Hate the one Who wouldn’t save us Shikata ga nai

Nothing can be done I’m no one

Hey. Our new LP "Is The Is Are" is out soon, so around its release we've announced a series of album release shows in NYC, SF, and LA. We are doing short residencies at The Echo and the famed Market Hotel, as well as two Noise Pop shows in SF, with a poster designed by the always great @nickgazin 

LOS ANGELES

2/23, 2/24, 2/25 @ The Echo

SAN FRANCISCO

2/27 @ Brick and Mortar for Noise Pop

2/28 @ The Independent for Noise Pop

NEW YORK

3/3, 3/4, 3/5 @ Market Hotel

So, in honor of these shows, we're sharing the title track off our new album, "Is The Is Are", right here:

This song was the last song I wrote for this record. I wrote it even after the rest of the record had already been recorded! I felt like something was missing from the record, that it needed an upbeat, propulsive, and vocal-driven song to kick off the 2nd LP. This is the rare DIIV song that doesn’t rely on a hooky guitar melody, but rather relies on a vocal melody and a propulsive bassline. This song was inspired by my experience recreating Neu!’s “Hallogallo” for a Noisey documentary on Krautrock. I was heavily inspired by the process behind the song. All the lead guitars on the track came from just me playing melodies over the song, as I would with any other song, but then we took the whole guitar track and flipped it backwards. Then, we did the same thing again! I recently read an interview with Michael Rother of Neu! in Tape Op magazine while waiting in line at a customs check in Berlin, months and months after the album was already submitted, and he talked about the recording process of “Hallogallo” and he said they basically did the same thing, playing melodies over the track and then flipping them backwards, but he said that they played their parts over an extended 30-minute version of the song and that their producer Connie Plank took their guitar parts and chopped them up to include his favorite bits, and I remember thinking, “aw man, I wish I had thought of doing that.” Anyway, I like the song the way it is.

The lyrics on this track are pretty intense, they’re included above. Kind of about finding yourself in vastly different, often paradoxical headspaces at various stages throughout addiction and recovery. One paradox is that while you're out on the street killing yourself, you can be feeling real good; while the process of ‘getting better’ is an extremely long and painful experience, though one that can also be extremely life-affirming.

This is the title track for our record “Is The Is Are” -- the song title came from the album title. A lot of people have asked about the reasoning behind having such a nonsensical title. So I guess I should try and explain it. Basically, I wanted something slightly disorienting, that felt homemade and imperfect, easy to criticize, something that made the reader feel like they weren’t grasping my intent, like I was being misunderstood, because I’ve felt so misunderstood throughout the entirety of DIIV’s existence. I wanted a title that wasn’t taken from a lyric on the album, or from the title of the album’s lead single, like they usually are. I didn’t want to name our second album “2″. I always feel like, if there’s an opportunity to be creative, there’s no reason not to use it. I wanted the title to come straight from the album art. I was really inspired by Concrete Poetry from the 60′s, poetry that took a visual form and was as much visual art as it was poetry. I loved Tom Philips “A Humument”.  I wanted the title to come from a poem. Another random inspiration was from the internet -- I got a lot of laughs from these two specific internet memes. One was “Has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like?”, and another was “I accidentally 93MB of rar files”. I felt like language had a specific type of power when it was misused. I wanted something that felt profound, but upon closer inspection was meaningless. I reached out to a poet/artist I found in Paris named Frederick Deming who I thought would totally understand where I was coming from. His comics, called Bizaroids, seemed to totally fit with the direction I wanted to go with this album art and title. I told him about “A Humement” and about “Has anyone really...” and wrote a few sample poems, and told him to go crazy. I felt like English being his second language would add another dimension to the poetry. Within a week, he sent me over 30 poems, and what he came up with couldn’t have been more perfect. Here are some poems he sent:

Together is am above. We is the us. Where am to be we.

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Black is practic Licking my thigh For go there for 44

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Star route buss trout Piolet no use, camping ha ha ? Lights crew 321 ?

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So with so you you see? Bring we bring us with we. Am are you be.

A bunch of these are included in the album art, on the printed eurosleeves, hand-lettered by Frederick and superimposed on top of paintings by Joji Nakamura, while even more are included in the special edition art, which includes a 32-page chapbook of Frederick’s drawings and more of his poems. The poem that I chose to take the album title from was the one I felt like fit the project the best:

Hear is their. Story, we is you . Is the is are.

I got this poem in an email from Frederick, and probably less than an hour after I got that email, I had already announced the album title. For me, this line just jumped off the page. I didn’t really have to think about it. I knew what I wanted, and this was it. Hopefully this whole thing will help explain where the title and the poem and the concept and everything all came from... Thanks to Frederick and also to Joji and Hyto who worked really hard on making all the art that makes up the package of “Is The Is Are”. If you can, please try to order the vinyl here: http://www.omnianmusicgroup.com/products/is-the-is-are

Thanks.

I feel like when discussing this album, a lot has been made of its relationship to drugs, and my own personal relationship with drugs. I've talked about it in the press as openly as I can because it is so important for me that this album register to people as being as true and as honest and as rooted in reality as possible.

approaching the subject of drugs in art, on a rock and roll album especially, is a special kind of complicated. the drug issues of so many archetypal rock stars have been so glamorized for so many decades, while also throughout history variously registering as being one of rock and roll's most thoroughly exhausted clichés. 

in discussing my own history openly and completely, I hoped to remove any attempt at seeming "cool" or "glamorous" and tried instead to totally humanize it. If you've watched the end of "Montage of Heck" or listened to Elliott Smith playing live at the Riviera theatre in Chicago (or lots of other late-era live Elliott), you probably don't see Kurt or Elliott's drug issues as being anything other than what they were: just plain sad. Addicts are sick people.

But I never wanted this record to be mired too deep in darkness either. My life wasn't all drugs and addiction, rehab/relapse, and sickness. I also met and fell in love with someone.

On "Dopamine", i say about Sky "you're the sun and I was your cloud", which is literally how I felt so many times we were together, and her name kinda made the metaphor feel doubly appropriate. I guess I also kinda carried it over to "Under the Sun" which deep down is just a love song, meant to be moment of levity amongst the heaviness of a lot of the rest of the record. No matter where you are, no matter what happens, I’m here. I don't think I would have made it out if it weren't for love. Not really sure what else to say.

here are the lyrics:

yes i’ll come back to you no i wont ask where you run under the sun Yes I’ll catch up to you Then I’ll ask what   have    we    done Under the sun To be free, be awake big breath you can’t fake once you’ve begun press my face to the back all the pillars that stack and hold up the sun

listen here: