For two decades, Desire have been making music for romantics. Created by Megan Louise and Johnny Jewel, the Montreal group emerged from the shadows of underground synth-pop to build a world entirely their own — where beauty lingers, heartbreak glows, and every song feels like the beginning of a love story.
Later this year, Desire return with Physical, their fourth studio album. Led by the euphoric first single “Summer Skin,”out today via Italians Do It BetterPhysical is a record about attraction, freedom, pleasure, movement, and being completely present while life is happening.
Windows down.
A favorite song playing at exactly the right moment.
The feeling that summer might never end.
“Summer Skin” opens with the sound of light from our nearest star dancing across the water. Yesterday is here to stay…That cyclical motif echoes the past lives we all carry with us, but each day is new & anything is possible. Summer brings us a recurring romantic optimism. Let’s celebrate & live in the moment. If the world feels like it’s ending…Turn the radio on & dance. Drip Drip…” – Johnny Jewel“Summer Skin” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43bfGZEfKTo
Written between continents, airports, hotel rooms, backstage corridors, and late nights at home, Physical captures the moments we spend our lives chasing — and the memories we carry long after they’re gone.
Since “Under Your Spell” became one of the defining musical moments of Drive, Desire have quietly become one of modern synth-pop’s most beloved cult acts, soundtracking fashion runways, bedrooms, films, dance floors, and late-night drives across the globe.
Desire return with their most immediate and intimate work to date.
“Physical is about falling in love with life again. The people around you, the music you’re listening to, the sunlight on your skin, the moments you wish could last forever.” — Desire
Desire are also set to tour Europe later this year with all dates listed below.
Tour dates: 15 Nov — Prague — Bike Jesus 17 Nov — Copenhagen — Hotel Cecil 18 Nov — Berlin — Frannz Club 20 Nov — Groningen — Simplon Poppodium 21 Nov — Rotterdam — Rotown 23 Nov — Brussels — Beursschouwburg 24 Nov — Lille — La Grand Mix 25 Nov — London — Colour Factory 27 Nov — Manchester — White Hotel 28 Nov — Glasgow — Stereo 30 Nov — Paris — Petit Bain 01 Dec — Grenoble — L’Ampérage 02 Dec — Bern — Dachstock 04 Dec — Ravenna — Bronson 05 Dec — Rome — Monk 08 Dec — Zagreb — Mochvara 09 Dec — Belgrade — Zappa Baza
Margate, UK’s Tokyo Tea Room create music inspired by human emotions, exploring themes of longing and the ephemeral nature of existence. Today, they release “Eyes Off You,” an atmospheric track about obsessive love. Written and produced by the band’s Daniel James Elliott, “Eyes Off You” captures the passion of desire through mesmerizing synth, guitar and dreamy vocals by Beth Dunn. True to their introspective universe, yet with a slightly more pop aesthetic, they transform vulnerability into something melodious and danceable.
On “Eyes Off You,” Tokyo Tea Room dive into the murky waters of obsessive love. Weaving a narrative around a love you can’t let go of, even when it hurts, they capture the fatalism of an impossible but all-consuming obsession, singing: “Can’t quit loving you like I was born to lose // Everything I do just leads me back to you.”
Tokyo Tea Room is a timeless project whose message transcends the music itself. The band arouses passions and emotions, taking listeners on a journey within a tender, comforting bubble. Their debut album, No Rush, established them as one of the most compelling emerging acts in alternative music, resonating with a growing global audience. With millions of monthly listeners and a sold-out debut North American tour, the band are rapidly building momentum, particularly in the US, where their audience continues to expand. With new music on the horizon, Tokyo Tea Room are entering a defining new chapter, evolving their sound while staying rooted in the emotional depth that defines their work.
Tokyo Tea Room will return to North America this fall touring in support of forthcoming new music. A full list of dates are below and tickets are on sale now.
Tokyo Tea Room Tour Dates: Thu. Sep 24 – Vancouver – Hollywood Theatre Sat. Sep 26 – Seattle WA – Neumos Mon. Sep 28 – San Francisco CA – Bimbo’s 365 Club Wed. Sep 30 – Los Angeles CA – Teragram Ballroom Fri. Oct 2 – San Diego CA – Quartyard Sat. Oct 3 – Tucson AZ – Club Congress Mon. Oct 5 – Austin TX – 29th St. Ballroom Tue. Oct 6 – Houston TX – White Oak Music Hall Wed. Oct 7 – Dallas TX – Club Dada (indoors) Fri. Oct 9 – Atlanta GA – Terminal West Sat. Oct 10 – Durham NC – Motorco Music Hall Sun. Oct 11 – Washington DC – The Atlantis Tue. Oct 13 – Brooklyn NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg Wed. Oct 14 – New York NY – Bowery Ballroom Thu. Oct 15 – Boston MA – The Sinclair Fri. Oct 16 – Montreal QB – Bar le Ritz Sat. Oct 17 – Toronto ON – Mod Club Mon. Oct 19 – Chicago IL – Lincoln Hall
After exploding onto the scene with their acclaimed 2023 EP Paradise, Wishy released their debut LP Triple Seven on Winspear in the summer of 2024. The album was one of the more critically-beloved debuts in recent memory, earning praise from outlets like Pitchfork (“a standout voice in a new generation of shoegaze”), Stereogum (“one of the best indie rock debuts in recent memory“), the NME (“one of the most exciting new rock bands operating anywhere right now“), Paste (“one of the most irresistible, unshakeable albums of the year“) Uproxx (“one of the best new bands in indie rock writ large“), and landing on Best of 2024 lists from publications like The New York Times, GQ and Alt Press.
The band’s run of success has showed no signs of slowing in 2025, which saw the release of a follow up EP called Planet Popstar, a Colbert performance, a run of tour dates with Momma, and appearances at Kilby Block Party and Riot Fest.
Today, Wishy are back to announce their sophomore LP Nature’s Pill (out October 2nd on Winspear). To mark the occasion they are sharing the album’s lead single “Lovesick,” a swooning gem sung by Nina Pitchkites that recalls The Cure at their most pop-forward and The Sundays at their buoyant best.
Pitchkites says of the track:
There’s not much more that needs to be said about yearning in 2026, but here it is anyway. Kevin and I are stupidly romantic people who like twee pop so that combination alone was a recipe for a cheeky “main character” song. We really leaned into the overzealous lyrics here because 1) we’re allowed, 2) can do whatever we want and 3) it’s fun 🙂 yay!
In addition to previously announced August tour dates with The Beths and Beach Bunny, Wishy are announcing a run of headline dates that will take them across the US in the fall. Full details can be found below.
Wishy’s origins go way back, to when Krauter and Pitchkites met in high school in Indianapolis. Some years and a few projects later, they joined forces to form Wishy, rounding out the lineup with guitarist Dimitri Morris, bassist Mitch Collins, and drummer Conner Host. The group’s musical synergy was intense from the jump and the beginning of their career has been a prolific burst: the Mana and Paradise EPs in 2023, debut LP Triple Seven in 2024, and a follow-up EP Planet Popstar in 2025. After those releases met acclaim and the band’s stature rose, the conception of Nature’s Pill was fundamentally different.
Wishy’s Nature’s Pill captures a world where life feels unpredictable and overwhelming, yet full of possibility. On their vibrant sophomore record, Wishy entertains the madness–capturing romantic frustration, neurotic desire and the melodrama that ensues from simply being human in a jubilant remix of the past. Nature’s Pill bears all of Wishy’s trademarks: zany lyrics transfiguring melancholia into freedom, choruses set to become instant classics, and an unholy fusion of sugary grunge, indie rock and dream-pop.
Written more collaboratively than past releases, the group reconvened with Triple Seven co-producer Ben Lumsdaine in Los Angeles, where the quintet packed into a tiny studio and tracked half the songs live in the room, imbuing the album with the immediate energy of a band in sync after heavy touring. It gave them the ability to synthesize an even greater array of touchstones this time around, with the ‘90s dream-pop and alt-rock of Triple Seven fusing with ‘80s college rock and ‘00s indie.
Underneath it all, Wishy locate a tenacity to keep trying anyway. “Being in an indie band feels bizarre when the world is on fire,” Krauter concludes. “What can you do at the end of the day other than carve out some space—at the very least I have my imagination and I can invite others to join me there. At a certain point you need to say fuck it and roll with it.” Sometimes you can’t make sense of it all. Nature’s Pill finds Wishy gleefully giving into the madness. After all: If life is absurd, all the possibilities are up to you.
Tour Dates
07/25 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues * 07/26 – Indianapolis, IN @ Deluxe at Old National Center * 07/27 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall * 07/31 – Santa Fe, NM @ The Bridge *& 08/01 – Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre *& 08/02 – Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues *& 08/04 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ Madonna Inn *& 08/06 – San Diego, CA @ SOMA *& 08/07 – Pomona, CA @ The Fox Theater *& 08/08 – Santa Ana, CA @ Observatory *& 08/11 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Civic *& 08/14 – Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory *& 08/15 – Portland, OR @ Courthouse Square *& 08/16 – Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Zoo *& 08/17 – Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club Ballroom * 08/18 – Bozeman, MT @ The ELM * 08/20 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown * 09/18 – Cincinnati, OH @ Fountain Square $ 09/26–09/27 – Sao Paolo, Brazil @ Balaclava Festival 10/03 – Indianapolis, IN @ WISHYFEST @ Atomic Duckpin 10/09 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups 10/10 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison 10/11 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz 10/13 – Portland, ME @ SPACE 10/14 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall 10/15 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church 10/17 – New York, NY @ Racket 10/18 – Washington, DC @ Atlantis 10/20 – Durham, NC @ Stanczyks 10/21 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl 10/22 – Asheville, NC @ Revival 10/23 – Nashville, TN @ Blue Room 10/25 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry 10/26 – Milwaukee, WI @ X-Ray Arcade 10/27 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
w/ Beach Bunny *& w/ Beach Bunny and The Beths $ w/ Ratboys
Keep your mind open.
[I’ll feel lovesick if you subscribe…or maybe if you don’t. I’m not sure.]
Tokyo-based artist and composer Shuta Hasunuma shares new single “A U R A” out today via Virgin Music Group. The track emerges from his ongoing project Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic Orchestra, a contemporary “philharmonic pop orchestra” built around collective performance and the interplay of minimalist rhythm, vocal resonance, and layered sonic texture. “A U R A” draws out fragments of memory and sensation, a meditation on self-discovery set against a gently expansive worldview, moving from restless repetition into quiet, luminous stillness.
The single arrives just ahead of Hasunuma’s return to the U.S. for a rare run of solo performances, his first since 2019. He will play New York City at Public Records on June 13 and Los Angeles at Healing Force of the Universe on June 20, both preceded respectively by local DJ sets at The Lot Radio on June 12 and Dublab on June 18.
Hasunuma’s collaborative, interdisciplinary practice spans composition, installation, and genre-crossing work, with a wide range of collaborators including Jeff Parker, Ichiko Aoba, Arto Lindsay, Keiji Haino, Cornelius, Devendra Banhart, Foodman, and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.
His work blends field recordings, electronic textures, and melodic composition into richly layered pieces, and in recent years has extended into video, sculpture, and installation, presented at domestic and international exhibitions and projects alike. His ensemble and solo music runs alongside soundtracks for stage productions and film.
Hasunuma has also developed a significant international art practice, with exhibitions at Pioneer Works in New York and Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo, where he received the 69th Minister of Education’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists. His credits include composing and conducting for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic opening ceremony.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hasunuma’s debut on an independent U.S. label in 2006. To commemorate the milestone, he will perform “Shuta Hasunuma Double Philharmonic Orchestra” a 41-member large ensemble that brings his Philharmonic with a newly formed string orchestra, at Suntory Hall in Tokyo on August 6.
Stream “A U R A” now and catch Shuta Hasunuma live this summer.
June 18 – Dublab Radio (DJ)
June 20 – Los Angeles, CA @ Healing Force of The Universe (solo)
August 6 – Tokyo, Japan @ Suntory Hall (w/ Double Philharmonic Orchestra)
Lara Somogyi announces her second album, a [time] patterned, out August 28th via Mercury KX, and shares the lead single/video, “sojourn.” A work rooted in contemporary classical yet reaching far beyond it, a [time] patterned is an intensely human document that reframes time not as a linear experience but as an emotional landscape.
A Juno nominee and artist who pushes the boundaries of her instrument, Somogyi approaches the harp as a vehicle for exploration rather than tradition. Having classical roots from the Royal Academy of Music and awarded an honorary Associate (ARAM) for her innovations in her field, she transverses sonic worlds. Her work spans film, television and collaborative composition, including collaborations with Bonobo, Ólafur Arnalds, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Bat For Lashes, and credits on Spike Lee’s Oscar-nominated Da 5 Bloods, Hans Zimmer’sBlue Planet II featuring Radiohead, and Ari Aster’sEddington for A24.
Where her debut album established a distinct voice through the harp alone, a [time] patterned begins there but moves outward. Written with producer Cyrus Reynolds, the album was shaped through tape loops, delay and repetition to explore how patterns emerge, dissolve and reform. The process became both technical and deeply personal after the loss of her father, an attempt to examine how time is felt rather than measured: joy is rhythmic, grief has structure, and healing forms patterns.
The first single to be revealed from the album, “sojourn” offers the perfect entry point to the record’s world. Written for harp, strings and electronics, it opens with an extended pedal technique blurring tonality and allowing texture to lead. A melodic thread gradually emerges as the track unfolds, while granular processing fractures and reconfigures time around it, creating a sense of motion that feels fluid and alive. Beneath it, strings provide a subtle architecture, grounding the piece as it shifts from introspection toward something more open and expansive.
Reflecting on the single, Somogyi says, “sojourn opens in the in-between; in that first step forward, tracing a quiet shift toward something open and free,” Somogyi says. “It’s not a beginning, even though it was the first piece I wrote for the record. To me, it feels like an opening to the next chapter.”
Across eleven compositions, a [time] patterned unfolds as a series of sonic environments, described by Somogyi as “rooms” the listener can move through. Field recordings, including birdsong from her birthplace of Kauai, sit alongside string arrangements and textural experimentation, featuring artists Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens) and Clarice Jensen (Max Richter). Influenced in part by architectural theory and the idea of pattern as structure, each piece becomes less a narrative than a form: joy, grief, and growth expressed as evolving systems of sound.
a [time] patterned is a work of curiosity and openness, an exploration of how experience leaves its imprint, and how music can hold and reshape it. The harp remains central, but continually reimagined: stretched through pedals, prepared with objects, and layered into shifting, immersive forms. With this latest release, Somogyi expands her work into new territory, creating a record that is as much about feeling as it is about form, and one that invites the listener to inhabit time on their own terms.
Lara Somogyi will play three headline shows this August and September in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn.
Lara Somogyi Live: Sat. Aug. 29 – Los Angeles, CA @ Live at Glass Hill Wed. Sept. 9 – Chicago, IL @ Constellation Fri. Sept. 11 – Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust
Bad Stuff share “Invisible Man” (https://youtu.be/4c3g8la29Dc), the second single from their forthcoming self-titled debut album, Bad Stuff, arriving June 5 via Relapse Records. Featuring members of True Widow (Dan Phillips and Nicole Estill) with Dallas art rock luminaries Jackie Dunn Smith, Gabriel Spatz, and Laura Hartman Pearl, the band channels hypnotic post-punk, blown out garage rock, and slow-burning heaviness.
“The song that would later become ‘Invisible Man’ was one of the first songs I wrote specifically for Bad Stuff,” explains Phillips. “I made a drum machine demo on my ADAT machine and sent it to Gabe with a gibberish vocal track so he could hear the melody and phrasing I had in mind, but when I got it back, he had sung over a part I had not intended to have vocals on. I started to tell him ‘eyo, don’t sing on this part,’ but immediately changed my mind because it was actually way cool. Now I can’t imagine the song without that part. One-take Gabe needs no editing.”
Spatz adds: “Yeah, I’m glad that part stayed in the song. Some of my favorite lines are in there; lines that kind of expand the meaning of the song for me. I remember singing it into my phone in the bathroom and on the roof of my building and having to retake it over and over again because I kept getting interrupted by the sound of horns and barking dogs.”
Bad Stuff first introduced themselves with the debut single “Summer Girls,” a simmering track anchored by hypnotic circular rhythms, low end drone, and Phillips’ unmistakable guitar work.
The band began as two separate projects: Latent Print, an instrumental outfit featuring Phillips and Estill, and Concord Kill, Dunn Smith’s synth and drum machine driven project. “So these songs from our two bands are sitting there, one set that I wrote for Latent Print and another set that Jackie wrote on a four-track recorder, and one day we decided that maybe we’d try to put it all together and see if it worked,” recalls Phillips. “And it did. When we were doing the sequence for the record, that “switching the dial“ thing became apparent– there’s not just one sound or one style. It really makes the pacing of the record work and sort of showcases each of the songs.”
Bad Stuff is available now for pre-order/pre-saves (https://orcd.co/badstuff) on vinyl, CD, and digitally.
Today, renowned French musician and artist Félicia Atkinson announces new album SANS VISAGE, a reimagined score for Georges Franju’s cult 1960 horror classic Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face), out June 26 via Viernulvier Records. The news arrives alongside lead preview “Les Yeux II” and follows her recently released collaborative album with Christina Vantzou, Reflections Vol. 3: Water Poems, via RVNG Intl., as well as her acclaimed solo releases Promenades and Space as an Instrument on Shelter Press.
Atkinson first saw Les yeux sans visage when she was a teenager, around the turn of the century. The film made an impact for its iconic imagery and the way Franju draws on the aesthetics of early filmmaking, from its score that relies on stylistic markers typical of the 1940s or 50s to the decision to shoot in black and white. Even four decades after its first release, it was clear that this was a work that stood outside of the cultural moment that birthed it, speaking through time in ways that were uncanny, but profound.
A quarter-century later, Atkinson was approached by the Belgian cultural center VIERNULVIER to create a new score for Les yeux sans visage for its celebrated Videodroom series, which has seen artists like claire rousay, Mabe Fratti, Lee Renaldo, and many more create new original scores for cult classics and genre cinema. Atkinson’s music, with its sublime meditations on space and proximity, its elusive sense of narrative development, mirrors the pacing and mystery at the heart of horror filmmaking. There is a shadow at the heart of her soundtrack to Les yeux sans visage, an ever-shifting wisp and an insinuation of encroaching transfiguration. Echoing a climactic moment in the film, the music obliquely points to “the Beyond,” an impossible place of discovery and revelation.
Atkinson envisioned her music as something akin to the air moving throughout and beyond the many cages that appear in the film, unconstrained by the bars and with undefined borders. Those cages hold the victims of a madman surgeon, determined to graft a new face onto his daughter, the protagonist Christiane Génessier, who lost hers in a car accident while he was behind the wheel. Atkinson was reminded of her predecessors at the pioneering French studio the GRM, who approached sound in a less sinister, but similarly surgical manner, and took inspiration from their playful approach to cerebral soundmaking for the electroacoustic topography into which the piano is embedded. As such, Atkinson’s reactions to the larger themes and the minute-by-minute happenings onscreen are both audible simultaneously.
A film about a man who destroys the lives of young women marked by their beauty and similarity to his daughter in a shame-fueled rage has clear, continuous cultural resonance. “Through the music, I decided to bring back their empowerment despite what they endure,” says Atkinson. “This is why the record is also dedicated to Gisèle Pelicot, whose trial happened while I was in the process of composing the music and kept thinking of her strength and her decision to share her trial in order to reverse the shame.”
This recorded version of the soundtrack is a 34-minute synthesis of the full 90-minute score, presented on LP along with an essay by writer-musician Claire Cronin and drawings by Momo Gordon, together forming a complex reflection on the film’s themes. If these sounds move as if the bars of cages are no barrier, they also intimate the freedom and power of those held behind them. Rather than simply mirroring the fear and confinement shown onscreen, Atkinson offers an elusive escape, a beacon for the characters, and the listener, to follow as they reckon with the narrative and move through it.
Listen to “Les Yeux II” above and stay tuned for more from Félicia Atkinson ahead of the full release of SANS VISAGE on June 26 via Viernulvier Records.
Today, Cornelius returns with his first new music in years, opening a long-awaited new chapter on Eat Your Own Ears Recordings. His new single, a cover of “Yumenemi,” was originally released in 1989 by one of Japan’s most iconic singer-songwriters, Yosui Inoue, and remains a cult Balearic classic.
Reimagined through Cornelius’s singular lens, the track marries his signature collage-like production, intricate rhythmic detail and soft-focus electronics with a lilting tropicalia inflection, for a swirling, heady track befitting of it’s title, which roughly translates to “dreaming”.
The new track arrives following a recent resurgence of interest in his work, including a viral TikTok moment and a nod from Rosalía, who featured “Typewrite Lesson”, originally a b-side from Cornelius’s iconic 1997 album ‘Fantasma’, in her Met Gala–themed Vogue playlist of all-time favourites.
Cornelius is the musical project of Japanese multi-instrumentalist Keigo Oyamada, who began his career in his teens and launched the Cornelius name in the early 1990s after his band Flipper’s Guitar. The project takes its name from Planet of the Apes.
He broke internationally with 1997’s Fantasma, a genre-blurring album of cut-and-paste production that drew comparisons to Beck and The Beastie Boys and was released worldwide by Matador Records. Often dubbed a “modern-day Brian Wilson,” Oyamada became a sought-after producer and remixer, a “musician’s musician”, collaborating with artists including Blur, Beck, Sean Ono Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, Haruomi Hosono, James Brown and many others.
With 2002’s Point, Cornelius shifted toward intricate loops of organic sound sources, from water droplets to vocoder-heavy reinterpretations, pushing his meticulous sound design further on 2007’s Sensuous. His live shows are renowned for precision-synced visuals, custom lighting, and immersive, band-led performances that treat the stage as a fully integrated audio-visual system.
The companion release Sensurround + B Sides was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards.
“Yumenemi” marks the start of a long-awaited new body of work, set to unfold over the coming months.
Dead Pioneers, the Indigenous fronted band from Denver, are back with another transmission from their forthcoming album Wagon Burner, due for release June 26th via Hassle Records.
Titled “Never Alone,” the new single features a vocal collaboration with Aimee Interrupter, vocalist for Californian ska-punk sensations, The Interrupters.“I wish I could express how proud we are about this collaboration, as well as how grateful we are to The Interrupters in their willingness to work with us on this one,” declares frontman Gregg Deal. “In all honesty, this has been in the works in conversation and execution for several years and can’t wait to share the very personal backstory on this.“The very real and palatable feeling of not belonging and finding solace through music, community and found family is something so many of us can understand on multiple levels. I’m a fan of The Interrupters, but also know through their music and first-hand how genuine they are in their mutual feeling and understanding of what this music does. ‘Never Alone’ is a homage to that familiar feeling of finding purpose in one’s self. Finding it through accessible means like music, community and the shared experiences associated with it. To share this with The Interrupters, Aimee, Kevin, Justin and Jesse is a dream. These are four fantastic people that don’t just understand these ideas, but stand by it in their love and compassion for the very human feelings of needing to find your place in the world. We’re super proud to share space with them as family.”
“Never Alone” is a life-affirming, rousing, air punching celebration of community and friendship, with Aimee’s vocals adding a deliciously addictive melodic hook to the song’s stomping groove.
“To hear Aimee’s voice in the chorus is overwhelming, to be sure,” says Gregg. “Besides the fact that she has a powerhouse of a voice, I hear the sound of a six-year friendship with Aimee and the Bivona boys with my own family, that predates Dead Pioneers. I am so grateful to this friendship, especially watching Aimee and my oldest kid Sage become close. When we say ‘Never Alone’, we mean it, knowing that the band, The Interrupters, are friends, hell, family, that truly believe these things along with us. I’m beyond grateful to share this with them, if not outwardly overwhelmed and emotional by it. What an incredible full circle moment.”
As Rare DM, Erin Hoagg fuses moody pop songwriting, vintage synthesis, and striking visuals. The New York City-based artist will release her second full-length, Attention, on May 29, 2026. Today, she shares the pensive and catchy new single “Honey,” which stemmed from the complexity of a budding romance. She ponders the vulnerable rush of admitting you love someone over a meticulous electronic arrangement. A brooding self-directed video, which nods to classic vampire movies, contrasts the euphoric subject matter.
On the single, Rare DM shares:“’Honey’ is my first happy love song. I wrote it during the uncertain time before saying the words ‘I love you’ – you’re in a constant state of butterflies: it’s sweet, vulnerable and a little scary. I wrote it in my old studio in Bushwick when I was being swept up, and really got into the symphony of things, percussive polyrhythms; chopping up my vocals. ‘Honey’ is one of the first songs I finished with producer Ross Fish aka Moffenzeef Modular (also from 4MS). I’m thrilled with how it turned out – super wide and swirly. I really enjoyed dialing in the finishing touches together. It’s one of my favorite songs to perform live.
‘Honey’ the video is leaning into the best part of being in love: having fun and being silly. Dating is a lot of sifting through trash, looking in the wrong places, getting caught up in games, battling decision paralysis… there are so many fish in the sea, you have to be willing to make a fool of yourself to find the right one. I am a strong believer that the most important part of a relationship is making each other laugh. The world is too serious.”
