Compliment is the new single from Erin Hoagg's Rare DM project, arriving with a statement, and expressing a feeling that lands somewhere between intrigue and unease. The song is the first glimpse of her upcoming album Attention, due May 29th, 2026, and it introduces a wider work concerned with the subtler contradictions of intimacy and perception.
Built on a kinetic beat, Compliment moves with clarity, with its rhythm appeaing slightly off-center in a way that keeps the listener alert. Rare DM’s vocal performance traces the emotional core of the track, at times clipped and distant, at others soft and fragile.
The accompanying video, directed by Lisa Saeboe and edited by Hoagg, extends the atmosphere into more surreal territory, as its imagery feels suspended and dreamlike, yet emotionally precise.
On the single, Rare DM shares: “Compliment started with writing lyrics with my Juno 60, using twisting bouncy arpeggiators and chopping up my original vocals into rhythmic stabs.
It is inspired by when you are in a relationship, and someone who you had eyes for (before meeting your s/o) suddenly pays attention to you. I was sent a suggestive message from someone, and wasn't single anymore. As the lyrics share: 'don’t you worry about it for a second, I can take a compliment' because hey, I don’t want them to feel embarrassed or bad, they didn’t know that I met someone! This all being said… I can’t control if they are thinking of me. 'You can’t have it… but you can imagine it'"
On the video, director Lisa Saeboe expands: "I wanted "Compliment" to feel like a surrealist journey through the unconscious, utilizing mirrors, repetition, and portals to create a simulacra of modern day loneliness and desire.
Compliment is also a love letter to artists that have helped shape my own visual language. We start the video with a reference to the Rokeby Venus by Diego Velásquez, the dreamy beach landscape inspired by experimental filmmaker Maya Deren, followed by Caravaggio’s Narcissus gazing into the pool, and of course the multiple echoes or Rare DM ascending the stairs à la Eadweard Muybridge. I’ve always thought of Rare DM as Man Ray’s ideal muse, whose work also helped establish the tone for the video."
If Compliment opens the path to Attention, it marks a record that trusts ambiguity, letting emotion reveal itself gradually.
ZR