dye — aka Los Angeles artist Daniel Ye — shares their latest single “tAke,”  a grungy, tossing and turning, obsessive heavy rumination on the artist’s struggle with OCD.  Listen to “tAke” here.

“tAke” is what Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box” would sound like if it were written by a teenager in 2024, with a dynamic range that travels from an Elliott Smith whisper to explosive guitars and vocals reminiscent of Linkin Park or Deftones. Written in ¾ time, it feels a little bit like a dark waltz, as Daniel Ye’s whispered, pleading vocals possess you to step into the proverbial mosh pit. “Every day is the same shame, killing me,”  he sings e’s voice — not sounding unlike The Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser –– above moody goth pop sonic flourishes.

Of “tAke,” dye says: “This song is about my OCD. I have suffered from intrusive thoughts my whole life and wanted to encapsulate how it feels to be trapped in your mind through a rock song. Living with this disease drains every fiber of your being and robs you of your sanity and sense of self, hence the candid nature of the chorus. OCD truly takes everything from you if you let it. The intensity of the chorus and the scream vocals after a delicate verse that describe the compulsions I have to undergo to appease it, are true to my day to day experience fighting this illness. This is by far the most personal song I’ve written.”

For Ye, a self-described shy kid from LA who picked up a guitar as a 13-year-old after hearing a long-gone Kurt Cobain on the radio, a dye song is more than the just sum of its parts — it’s a window into who he really, truly is…at last. As he did on previous singles  “supernAtural” and “dirt,” we find dye honing in on a signature sonic landscape, tying together the grunge tones of Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails, the literate angst and melodic introspection of Elliot Smith or John Lennon, and a dash of dark orchestral maneuvers reminiscent of My Chemical Romance or Smashing Pumpkins. These elements are then cast against impressionistic swirls of sound and imbued with a blistering angst.

It’s a heady combination: dye’s unmistakable sound has already won fans at BBC Radio1 (Rock Show w/ Daniel Carter), Australian radio station Triple j, and loads of editorial love at Spotify and Apple. As the young songwriter continues building out the world of dye, listeners are sure to discover rich new veins of emotion.