Australian artist daine returns with “I Used To Kill,” a raw new single and accompanying music video featuring fellow Pack. Records artist aldn. The track arrives as the latest preview of daine’s forthcoming debut album, In Endless Awe & Agony, due November 6 via Pack. Records, and finds the artist embracing a more exposed and emotionally direct side of their songwriting.
“I Used To Kill” begins with daine’s bare, unguarded vocals before erupting into waves of digital distortion and fractured production. The song eventually breaks apart around a deconstructed chorus, with daine and aldn repeating the cutting refrain, “I used to kill for it / you’ll say anything to get me through the door.”
The result is a track that captures the tension running through daine’s upcoming album: vulnerability colliding with digital chaos, while questions of identity, desire, fear, and transformation remain at its core.
In Endless Awe & Agony represents a significant evolution for daine, moving beyond the maximalist pop approach that has defined much of their previous work toward a broader and more ambitious artistic vision. Built around a Jungian individuation arc, the album examines the process of confronting the self and navigating the complicated path toward personal transformation.
The record emerged from one of the most challenging periods of daine’s life, including the loss of their grandmother, the end of their longest relationship, and a period spent in a psychiatric ward. In the aftermath, daine gradually began rebuilding their relationship with music and performance, eventually returning to the stage and releasing the i want the light to swallow me whole EP.
That movement from survival toward renewal became one of the album’s defining themes. Rather than relying as heavily on digital processing, In Endless Awe & Agony moves toward a more exposed and human sound. It also marks the first time daine has recorded vocals without autotune, giving the songs an immediacy that reinforces the album’s deeply introspective character.
“I Used To Kill” follows “love love (love love),” a meditation on isolation and the desire for connection, as well as “PQC,” which earned early support from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and The FADER. The FADER praised the track as “catchy as a children’s tune and as dancey as any electroclash banger.”
Across more than five years of releases, daine has developed a distinct sonic identity while continually experimenting with vocal delivery, electronic production, and songwriting. Their collaborative history includes work with Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon, Ericdoa, 100 gecs, and Kreayshawn, while their music has received support from Beabadoobee, Charli XCX, underscores, and Wisp.
The new album also arrives alongside a growing live schedule. Following a recent Australian tour with Ninajirachi and Lucy Bedroque, daine will appear at Pitchfork London and Pitchfork Paris this fall before launching a headline Australian run in November.
That tour will be followed by daine’s North American album release tour in December. The newly announced run begins in Toronto before traveling to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco, concluding in Los Angeles.
With “I Used To Kill,” daine continues peeling back the layers of their sound and songwriting ahead of In Endless Awe & Agony. Where earlier work often embraced maximalist production and digital intensity, the new material suggests an artist increasingly interested in what happens when those layers fall away — leaving the voice, the emotion, and the questions underneath.
In Endless Awe & Agony arrives November 6 via Pack. Records.