DIIV took the stage at Balaclava Fest in São Paulo on Sunday, and they came loaded. The shoegaze crew dropped fresh material from ZIRP!, their forthcoming A. G. Cook-produced record landing next month. That pairing alone is a moment.
Think back to the wall-of-noise beauty of Oshin in 2012, or the darker, denser pull of Deceiver in 2019. DIIV have always known how to bury a hook under gorgeous fuzz. Now they are handing the boards to Cook, and the São Paulo set gave the crowd a first real taste of where that collaboration is headed.
Then came the curveball. They covered Charli XCX's "Playboy Bunny," another Cook-produced track, folding it into their own hazy universe. Two worlds colliding, live, in front of a Brazilian crowd that ate it up.
The new tracks sounded like a band leaning into something bigger. ZIRP! could be the belter that pushes DIIV into a whole new gear. Next month cannot come fast enough.