daine's Quantum Jumping is seven stages of talented teenage angst

The 19-year-old’s debut showcases a journey of both her artistic and personal growth as she’s curated a chronological tracklist of songs she had penned from the age of sixteen onward. The seven-tracker guides the listener through a series of relatable emotions, frustrations and subject matters that will instantly transport you to the inescapable emotional turmoil of your teens. From lost love to angst to nostalgia, Quantum Jumping immortalises the trials and tribulations of youth in what feels like real-time.

daine welcomes you into her world with innocently sweet vocals on "cemetary dreams," which is arguably the most calming number on the EP. It's the earliest written work released by daine thus far and it perfectly captures the restlesness of one’s younger years as guitars twinkle and trap-style drum machines whirr. The atmospheric “weekends” plants the listeners right back into the driving seat of youth, as daine explores the feeling of not belonging. The track touches on the hallmark of any modern relationship, “Stopping myself from texting you back,” which adds a relatable sting.

In a gentler turn within daine’s roadmap of teenagerdom, “black and blue” begins with a delicate fingerstyle guitar that leads you into a false sense of security before it boils over into its self-titled hook. The subtle lyric, “I want you as my best friend” is a sweet reminder that we’ve been given in an insight into daine’s young adult fairy. Glimmers of a debut-era Avril Lavigne shine through in the beginning moments of track four, but with some expected 2022-style grit. Crunching drums and warping bass wrap around the songwriter’s cutting lines as she doesn’t attempt to shy away from her disdain for the subject of “IDC”’. Her angst hits fever pitch during the mid-way point of the mixtape, reaching an emotional point of no return with lines such as, “Does it look like I care about you? / Fuck your mom, little sister and your dad too”.

A standout track of the EP, “glitter” enters a new sonic realm for daine, beginning with a curiously familiar-sounding guitar riff. The imagery within this track perfectly encapsulates the uniquely ‘daine’ aesthetic that makes her such an intriguing artist to follow as she emerges. In the mixtape’s penultimate song, she builds on the genre of loop-based music, cycling through glitches and scratches that conjure up the perfect bed for daine’s airy vocal to lie on. The singer’s words roll off the tongue in a satisfying succession of rhythm throughout, and her confessional thoughts rattle off questions as she doubts whether she’s coping with the constant ebb and flow of growing up.

The aptly named closing chapter, “new ground,” combines all that came before it and builds upon it. Electric guitar guides the song and the lyrics follow as if they are leaping directly from the page of the musician’s very own private journal. Unfiltered, unapologetic and candid, daine delivers a steady stream of consciousness as she wraps up her Quantum Jumping era.