Indie Artist Daffo Drops Inspiring New Track ‘Sideways,’ Shares Debut Album Where the Earth Bends and Chicago Tour Date 11/17
Photo by Nolan Knight
Daffo — the project of LA-based artist Gabi Gamberg — unveils “Sideways,” the final single ahead of their debut album Where the Earth Bends, arriving this Friday via Concord Records. “‘Sideways’ is tough for me to talk about, but it has to do with my habit of keeping secrets from others, or hiding certain things from people out of the belief that it’s for their own benefit,” Gamberg shares.
Emerging as an essential new voice in indie rock, Daffo delivers unexpected beauty from life’s most uncomfortable emotions. With poetic precision and raw honesty, Gamberg captures the weight of shame, self-doubt, misplaced affection, and the chaos of living with an overactive mind. Produced and mixed by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck, Cat Power), Where the Earth Bends is a striking coming-of-age record that transforms painful confessions into moments of catharsis.
The album’s previous singles — “Get a Life,” “Habit,” “Dagger Song,” “Quick Fix,” and “Absence Makes the Heart Grow” — have earned acclaim from outlets including Alternative Press, Brooklyn Vegan, Paste Magazine, Stereogum, and The Needle Drop, while earlier releases have drawn recognition from The New York Times, Pitchfork, and Billboard.
After a year of touring alongside Blondshell, illuminati hotties, and Annie DiRusso, Daffo will hit the road this fall supporting Wednesday, followed by a run of headline shows across the UK and EU next month. Full tour dates are listed below.
Where the Earth Bends
Album Art Credit: Zora Gamberg
Track List:
1. Get a Life – Watch
2. Habit – Listen
3. Carrot Fingers
4. Dagger Song – Watch
5. Bad Dog
6. Quick Fix – Watch
7. Absence Makes the Heart Grow – Watch
8. Go Fetch
9. When I’m In Hell
10. Unveiling
11. Sideways
12. Where the Earth Bends
Tour Dates:
10/29 – Manchester, UK @ YES (Basement)
10/30 – Leeds, UK @ The Lending Room
10/31 – London, UK @ The Lower Third
11/01 – Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling
11/04 – Berlin, DE @ Bar Bobu
11/05 – Haldern, DE @ Haldern Pop Bar
11/06 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique (Witloof Bar)
11/07 – Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Music Festival (Supersonic Records)
11/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer ^
11/11 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^
11/12 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^
11/13 – Montreal, QC @ Club Soda ^
11/15 – Toronto, ON @ Concert Hall ^
11/16 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre ^
11/17 – Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theater ^
11/19 – Cleveland, OH @ Globe Iron ^
11/20 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Roxian Theatre ^
11/21 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club ^
^ w/ Wednesday
About Daffo:
The latest entry in an acclaimed catalog including their widely beloved 2021 debut EP Crisis Kit and its 2023 follow-up Pest, Where the Earth Bends begins on the oddly thrilling lament of “Get a Life”: a sing-along-ready rumination on the all-too-familiar challenge of living fully in the moment. Meanwhile, “Quick Fix” examines how attempts at self-soothing frequently lead to prolonged suffering.
Detailing the empty pleasures of cigarette smoking and one-night stands, the visceral yet ineffably gentle track serves as a sonic testament to Gamberg’s inner battle to understand and forgive themselves. Imbued with equal parts rage, shame, and resolve, the sublimely grungy “Absence Makes the Heart Grow” documents the slow dissolution of a long-distance relationship.
With their artist name taken from the swath of daffodils that grew in the yard of their childhood home, Gamberg first tapped into their innate musicality by taking up violin at age six, then underwent classical training for nearly a decade before discovering their affinity for guitar. At the age of 15, they took part in a summer program at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where they crossed paths with Hudson Pollock—a fellow student who soon introduced Gamberg to the DIY community in northern New Jersey, including all-ages spaces like Serendipity Café (a student-run nonprofit venue that’s hosted likeminded artists such as Pinegrove and Alex G).
“I started going up to New Jersey almost every weekend to record or play shows, and after a while I felt like I needed to get out my town altogether,” Gamberg says. Following a failed attempt at persuading their parents to let them drop out of high school, Gamberg enrolled at Idyllwild Arts Academy (a residential arts high school in Southern California) just after Covid hit.
“I spent a lot of my time secluded in the mountains, writing and recording and going to classes on Zoom,” says Gamberg, who self-released Crisis Kit during their time at Idyllwild. “At first I had a hard time with songwriting classes; I didn’t like the idea of following any kind of formula or rules. But eventually I learned a lot about what makes a song effective, and how to convey things in a way that really gets through to somebody.”
After graduating, Gamberg enrolled at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University and slowly made their way into the local DIY scene. “The first time I played in New York, I didn’t know anyone and only one person showed up,” they say. “But then my first week of classes I went in and told everyone, ‘I’m playing a show on Friday and I don’t have a band, who wants to play with me?’ It’s a lot harder to tap into the DIY scene there, but pretty soon I was playing shows every weekend in New York and in Jersey.”
As their community of fans began to grow, they downloaded TikTok on a whim and went viral with the second post they ever shared: a bedroom performance of a spontaneously composed song called “The Experiment,” which later appeared as a bonus track on Pest. Not long after Pest’s arrival, Daffo inked a deal with Concord Records, then left NYU to focus on their music full-time.
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Links:
Official: https://www.daffomusic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daffoband/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daffoband
