Forest Shares New Single ‘Divine Machine’ Ahead of Debut Album Swan Dive

Los Angeles artist Forest has unveiled “Divine Machine,” the latest preview of her forthcoming debut album Swan Dive, due September 25 via AWAL.

Built around shimmering electronic glitches, heavy guitars and a relentless drum pulse, “Divine Machine” captures the uneasy feeling of being permanently tethered to someone — even when you desperately want to let the connection go. Forest moves between wispy vocals and heavier passages, turning that emotional push and pull into something atmospheric, distorted and deeply immediate.

The artist describes the track as being about “feeling tied to a person” and the sense that, regardless of what happens, “you’ll always be connected.” Rather than depicting a literal reunion, the song focuses on the psychological weight of carrying someone with you long after they have disappeared from your life.

“Divine Machine” follows a run of singles that have established Forest as one of the more unpredictable new voices in alternative rock. Earlier releases including “Anchor,” “Lay With Me,” “Whore & Savior” and “Prosthetic Stars” have showcased her ability to move between bruising guitar-driven rock, shoegaze haze, industrial textures and moments of sharp pop melody.

That restless approach sits at the centre of Swan Dive. Across ten tracks, Forest expands the alt-rock foundation of her earlier work into something more fluid and cinematic, layering distorted guitars with electronic production and industrial undercurrents. The result is music that can feel intimate one moment and overwhelming the next.

The album’s title reflects that tension. Swan Dive began with an unexpected image: while staying in a hotel with her family, Forest noticed a framed photograph of a swan hanging behind a toilet. The image stayed with her, eventually becoming a symbol for the album’s recurring themes of devotion, loneliness, transformation and the difficulty of escaping the past.

Those ideas run throughout the record, from the dissociation and self-perception explored on “Vulture” to the tangled memories of “Anchor” and the isolation at the heart of “Breathe Out.” “Whore & Savior” turns first love and adolescence into a confrontation with the contradictory expectations placed on women, while “Prosthetic Stars” looks back at fleeting relationships and destructive distractions.

Recorded primarily in producer Aaron Liebman’s backyard garage studio, Swan Dive embraces a deliberately DIY spirit while pushing Forest’s sound into more experimental territory. Live instrumentation sits alongside processed textures and electronic elements, creating a world that feels simultaneously raw, strange and carefully constructed.

The new single arrives as Forest continues to build a reputation as a compelling live performer. After sharing stages with Starcrawler, Chokecherry and Empty Shell Casing, she kicked off 2026 with an appearance at the sold-out BurnDown emo revival festival in Santa Ana before touring North America with Clarion.

This autumn, Forest will hit the road again in support of ivri, with West Coast dates taking her through Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, Santa Ana, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

With Swan Dive now approaching, “Divine Machine” offers another glimpse at an artist embracing contradiction rather than smoothing it out. Heavy yet delicate, romantic yet uneasy, the track turns an invisible emotional bond into something you can actually hear.

Forest’s debut album Swan Dive arrives September 25, 2026 via AWAL.