RARE DM - Attention

“Fuck the fucking ceiling”.
This is how Erin Hoagg, aka Rare DM, sums up the attitude behind “Attention”, her second album. Darkwave – she says – has a ceiling, and she has no intention of stopping before she's broken through it. Imposed by whom or by what we can only guess, but Rare DM is too pop to be confined to a single genre, and too performative to be dismissed as merely goth-adjacent. On this album, desire intertwines with obsession, drawing on electroclash, minimal wave and Ebm coordinates before pushing them further still, onto the dancefloor of an imaginary club seen through a distorted reflection.

Seven years on from her debut, “Vanta Black”, Rare DM returns with a record that retains the confessional intimacy of her early work while considerably widening its scope. Where the debut was often steeped in an almost cosmic melancholy, “Attention” feels more physical, more ironic, and above all more aware of its own performative dimension. It doesn't come across as an invitation, but sounds exactly like a command. Possessed of a rare elegance that's both vintage and futuristic – as if Laurie Anderson had decided to produce an album for Crystal Castles (with a voice often whispered, sometimes spoken, sometimes screamed, but always magnetic, moving sinuously over deliciously lush synth beds),
Rare DM has often said she feels constrained by genre labels, and this record proves her point.
Sure, you can catch echoes of Boy Harsher, Goldfrapp, John Maus or the more refined minimal tradition, but Rare DM uses these coordinates as a springboard to break through that ceiling.

Every track has its own tactile identity. The emotional peak probably arrives with “Skater Hits Me Harder”, one of the finest moments on the entire album. Minimal arpeggios, deceptively simple synth lines, and the track manages to generate a strikingly palpable melancholy. It's one of those songs where a handful of elements manage to suggest far more than they actually show.
“Attention” is an album that works best thanks to its more experimental episodes, while the more conventional ones (the ones closer to traditional synth-pop) land with less impact than the bolder moments.
What really makes Rare DM's second album so compelling is its ability to move between pop accessibility and underground allure without sacrificing either.

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01/07/2026