daine – Endless Awe & Agony
daine releases their highly anticipated debut album In Endless Awe & Agony out now via Pack. Records.
Raw and emotionally expansive, their debut album finds daine pushing beyond a maximalist pop sound while embracing a broader, more ambitious artistic vision. The album comes alongside a lo-fi music video for “White Collar” featuring daine wandering around crowded city streets, through shops and arcades.
“White Collar” adopts a noticeably darker tone than the other tracks released from the album so far, offering a cynical, tongue-in-cheek portrait of a world where privilege is mistaken for talent, social climbing is disguised as friendship, and everyone is competing to appear the least bothered. Beneath its biting satire, however, is an admission of complicity: an awareness that we are all, to varying degrees, pressured to participate in the very systems we might otherwise reject. While much of In Endless Awe & Agony turns inward to examine the complexities of identity, desire and emotional connection, “White Collar” extends that interrogation outward, examining the social hierarchies, performances and pursuits of status that shape how we understand ourselves and relate to others. In doing so, it offers another perspective on the album’s broader exploration of self, questioning where genuine identity ends and the roles we adopt to navigate the world begin.
Structured around a Jungian individuation arc, In Endless Awe & Agony traces the process of confronting the self, grappling with identity, desire, fear, and transformation. The result is a body of work that is both cerebral and deeply affecting with introspective sounds that shimmer and soar, inviting listeners to reflect on life’s biggest questions without ever sacrificing emotional connection. The record moves away from heavier digital processing and toward something more exposed and human. The album is also the first time daine sings without autotune, which adds another layer of immediacy to the music.
The album release follows daine’s Triple J performance of “PQC” and Martin Solveig & Dragonette’s “Hello” as well as their cover stories with 10 Magazine and NME where daine spoke about, “stepping into self-aware popstardom.”
The album follows singles “Wishing Well”, “Product of Profit (P.O.P.)”, “I Used To Kill” featuring fellow label artist Aldn, “love love (love love),” a candid meditation on the tension between self-isolation and the longing for connection and “PQC,” which received early praise from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum as well as The FADER. The latter of which described the track as, “Catchy as a children’s tune and as dancey as any electroclash banger.”
daine has spent over half a decade exploring a diverse, but distinct sonic palette experimenting with their vocal delivery and refining their craft as a songwriter. The journey toward In Endless Awe & Agony emerged from one of the most difficult periods of their life, marked by the loss of their grandmother, the end of their longest relationship to date, and time spent in a psychiatric ward. In the year that followed, daine slowly began to reemerge – returning to the stage, releasing the EP i want the light to swallow me whole, and intentionally making space for joy again. That gradual movement from survival toward renewal became a defining thread woven throughout the album.
daine will be embarking on their headline North American album release tour this December. Beginning in Toronto, the tour will head to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Portland and San Francisco, before concluding in Los Angeles. Given the high demand the NY show was updated to a larger venue and daine will now be performing at Elsewhere’s Hall while an extra date was added in LA at The Echo. daine also performed at Pitchfork London earlier this week and is performing at Pitchfork Paris tonight. The North American tour will run on the heels of their headline Australian run this November.
Tour Dates:
11/13 – Sydney, Australia @ Metro Social – Sold Out
11/24 – Sydney, Australia @ Metro Social – Sold Out
11/19 – Brisbane. Australia @ Black Bear – Sold Out
11/21 – Melbourne, Australia @ Max Watts – Sold Out
11/4 – London, UK @ Pitchfork London Festival
11/6 – Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Paris Festival
12/2 – Toronto, ON @ Drake hotel
12/5 – Philadelphia, PA @ Warehouse on Watts
12/6 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere (The Hall)
12/8 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas
12/10 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
12/12 – San Francisco, CA @ Neck of the Woods
12/13 – Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge
12/14 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
#d4ine