Brown Paper Bag by DIIV

Produced by Chris Coady, DIIV's Frog in Boiling Water marks the band's fourth full length endeavor. Described as a series of snapshots, the album explores the harsh truths of end-stage capitalism and the inundating advancements in technology. Scheduled for release on May 24th, 2024, via Fantasy Records, the album's first single is Brown Paper Bag.

Inspired by Daniel Quinn's The Story of B, the album's title surrounds its central motif of gradual decay. Lifting elements from moody shoegaze, dreampop, and post rock, the track constructs an ominous atmosphere that resonates with the somber tone of the lyrics.

The band comments: “If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.”

We understand the metaphor to be one about a slow, sick, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism, the brutal realities we’ve maybe come to accept as normal. That’s the boiling water and we are the frogs. The album is more or less a collection of snapshots from various angles of our modern condition which we think highlights what this collapse looks like and, more particularly, what it feels like.”

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DIIV