As this week’s star of The Cover, Daine has shared an exclusive accompaying playlist titled ‘I Believe In You’ – check it out below.
The Filipino-Australian electronic pop artist was profiled by Alex Rigotti and photographed by Dean Podmore for The Cover ahead of the November release of their debut album ‘In Endless Awe And Agony’.
Their new playlist, curated exclusively for The Cover, is also full of left-field electronic bops by the likes of M.I.A., The Femcels, Babymorocco and Loukeman. Also in the mix are past NME Cover artists Sophia Stel and Chanel Beads, as well as Aldn, who featured on Daine’s most recent single ‘I Used To Kill’.
Stream the playlist ‘I Believe In You’ on Apple Music here and Spotify below:
Daine’s long-awaited debut album comes five years after NME tipped them in the NME 100 of 2021. With a collaboration with Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes, a cosign from Charli XCX and a major label contract, things seemed on the up for Daine then – now, they look back on that time as a period of creative indecision. “It was really difficult,” they revealed, “and I was being pulled in different directions, looking at what was happening around me and being like, ‘What do I do?’”
Now on the indie label Pack. Records and teasing their first full-length with the singles ‘PQC’, ‘Love Love (Love Love)’ and ‘I Used To Kill’, Daine is exploring a “more human” approach to their music and aesthetic. “On a day-to-day basis, I’m so normal, and now I feel I’m too cartoony when I dress up too much, so I wanted to be more human,” they told NME. “The sound also got more human; there’s less vocal distortion, no Auto-Tune. I’ve peeled back these performative layers. Now I’m just human, which is weird.”
Read more about Daine’s journey in their Cover story here, and see who else has appeared on The Cover here.
Every year, NME produces 50 Cover stories, showcasing the future of music via in-depth profiles and exclusive photoshoots of the best emerging artists around the world. Check out our coffee table book NME The Cover 2024-2025, which features the likes of XG, Mary In The Junkyard, Underscores, Amaarae, Fcukers and many more.