Zachary Cole Smith isn’t afraid to put himself in lofty company. In a now-infamous 2013 interview with Pitchfork, the DIIV frontman claimed that he could see his band being at Nirvana’s level by album three. So it’s no surprise that, during a recent live performance in the SiriusXM Studios, Smith and his DIIV bandmates went all out with a lush, layered, and entirely acoustic cover of Cat Power’s powerful single “Nude As The News”.
The original version, which appears on Power’s near-classic 1996 album What Would the Community Think, features a sparse electric guitar melody, while DIIV’s version employs three acoustics to create a richer and altogether different atmosphere. It’s an ambitious cover by an ambitious band, whose last release was February’s Is the Is Are.
Cat Power’s original version:
