Rare DM – Mean Girled

Erin Hoagg’s Rare DM filters every day interactions through a cinematic veil. Her second full-length, Attention, is out May 29, 2026.

Today, she shares the new single, premiering on FLOOD Magazine, “Mean Girled,” which uses the medieval war practice of poisoning the well as a metaphor for misunderstood intentions. Moody and propulsive, it finds Hoagg poised for the spotlight while embracing outsider attitude.

On the single, Rare DM shares: “’I hate worrying about people I don’t even care about. This song was inspired by rumination against my will, driven by what I have been told is my (ever present & very inconvienent) ‘strong sense of justice.’ The term poisoning the well (or attempting to posion the well) is a type of informal fallacy, with violent roots dating back to the black death / middle ages, and the wartime tactic of poisoning a town’s water supply to destroy an invading army’s health. Far from life or death (despite how it can feel sometimes) my own experiences with being ‘mean girled’ as an adult have been an unwelcome lesson that people committed to misunderstanding you, will continue to do so.”

On the video: “This video is from two ferry rides and a dream. Calvin Stark shot this with me last Thursday, right after my cut & color appointment with my hair bender Sean Michael Bennett. Being on a boat felt appropriate for this single – when I wrote this song I felt like a sailor lost at sea. Though no one can poison the well that is the east river. It’s already been done!”

Erin Hoagg’s Rare DM is a fully realized audiovisual world: Moody, pulsing, and meticulously constructed. Analog synthesizers throb beneath surreal depictions of the mundane. With a midnight love for the avant-garde, Hoagg dons the glamour of art deco with a fondness for vintage suiting, H.R. Giger, Akira, and fantasy novels. Rare DM seeks solace in the otherworldly, obscured in her enigmatic stage presence. As a trained swing dancer, a glimmer of proclivity for the 1920’s and 30’s shines through — also evident via Hoagg’s signature platinum bob; a “vidal sassoon” take on the flapper era style.

With tours spanning across North America, Europe, and Mexico, Rare DM has showcased her immersive DAW-less performance alongside artists including Molchat Doma, Model/Actriz, Xeno & Oaklander, Mareux, and Drab Majesty. Festival appearances include Substance (Los Angeles), Flesh & Steel (New York), South by Southwest (Austin), Coldwaves (Chicago), Verboden (Vancouver), Grauzone (Den Haag), and Black Factory (Kyiv). Stereogum dubbed Rare DM “show-stopping,” while PAPER Magazine praised the viral single “Send Nudes” as “strangely somber yet scintillating.” The track is paired with Hoagg’s self-directed, bike-riding visual that became an early breakout moment — her deadpan, yet kinetic sensuality contrasting the sparsely-populated early days of the COVID pandemic in New York City.

Born in Baltimore to fine artist parents, and later relocating to Manhattan to study fashion design, Hoagg’s foundation in visual art is inseparable from her sound. Approaching Rare DM as an all encompassing art project, Hoagg fuses music, image, styling, movement, and narrative into a cohesive mythology. Neon-streaked, retrofuturistic, dreamlike, often eerie and emotionally charged — her iconography is as deliberate as the compositions. For every video, a new world is conjured up before the first frame is even shot. As a director and editor, she sculpts with a meticulous eye, commanding light, texture, and pacing with the same precision she brings to the studio.

The mastery of synthesis is central to Rare DM’s identity. As a producer and multi-instrumentalist, Hoagg composes with her home studio as her catalyst: Sculpting rumbling basslines, metallic pulses, cascading arpeggiators, and machine-driven beats from a trove of analog gear. Her hardware synths and drum machines are curated and scavenged from the streets of New York, haggled for in the depths of Craigslist and further reaches of the internet. The result is tactile and enveloping: Machines distort and shimmer like living circuitry. Sketches begin in solitude and are refined in motion — on tour, in transit, on bike rides — lending a sense of propulsion and immediacy.

Hoagg makes her true motion picture debut in The Bride!, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, as the synth player for Fever Ray. The Mary Shelley inspired film, starring Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley, hits theaters March 6th. The appearance marks a natural expansion for Rare DM from underground spaces to the silver screen.

Rare DM’s second full-length, Attention, leans fully into spectacle and seduction. Where Hoagg’s debut, Vanta Black, lingered in heartbreak, Attention is kinetic and self-aware — an exploration of lust, performance, and ego. The title nods to both scrutiny and precision: A meditation on being watched, and on watching closely.

“Compliment” surges with electric tension before detonating into a pummeling peak. “Skater Hits Me Harder” reframes adolescent memory through adult desire. “Honey” and “Landed” drift through luminous atmospheres, their glowing synths and weightless rhythms unfolding with a sense of quiet momentum. “Significant Other” is an instrumental that explores Hoagg’s darker sonic terrain while showcasing her technical command. On “325,” an homage to the titular BMW E30, undulating bass propels a fantasy of escape. “LA Traffic” answers gridlock with techno-laced urgency. Recurring automotive imagery explores the friction between acceleration and stagnation. Throughout, engines rev, lights streak, and tunnels blur. Motion manifests as metaphor.

With Rare DM, Hoagg designs her world through light and sound, layering vivid textures that feel almost tangible in their flow. Attention expands her universe while keeping its core intact: analog, neon-lit, and humming with intention. Beneath the glow runs a darker current, where shadowy tones and hypnotic rhythms lure the listener onto the dancefloor, which Hoagg weaves into her magnetic live sets. Attention arrives worldwide, May 29, 2026.

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