DIIV: Oshin (new cover art) [CAPTURED TRACKS]

Why you'll love it

This reissue comes in new artwork and was pressed in the Czech Republic. Stereogum ranked Oshin No. 22 of 2012, and in 2018 Pitchfork named it one of the 30 best dream pop albums.

This edition

• New cover art
• Pressed in the Czech Republic

About the album

Zachary Cole Smith didn't want Oshin to be about him. He let the guitars carry the meaning and tucked his voice into the mix as one more texture, so the record rewards turning up rather than leaning in.

Smith wrote and produced every song, with Daniel James Schlett recording and mixing and Devin Ruben Perez, Andrew Bailey and Colby Hewitt III in the band. "(Druun)" opens in an instrumental haze, "Past Lives" and "Air Conditioning" ride driving, krautrock-leaning rhythms, "Human" and "Follow" chime and spiral, and "Home" closes in a warm blur. Pitchfork's Ian Cohen heard it as an experiment in whether a guitar band could let the guitar carry a song's meaning.

Pitchfork also placed it at No. 40 among the albums of 2012, and it still sounds like the start of something. The new sleeve is a fresh coat of paint on a house that never needed fixing, but we do like the colour.

Also at Kops: more DIIV on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Captured Tracks (cat# CT-158), a reissue of the 2012 album.