I deleted all my tweets from the time I discovered Attic Abasement, but I remember the day vividly. Rachel Levy of R.L. Kelly had posted some glowing thing about the album, which was self-released in 2010, and she and I went back and forth about how excited I was that Mike Rheinheimer sings the word "dick" in both of the first two songs. His deep voice sounds so naturally sad, but much of what he says is funny just as it's dark.
"Australia," the lead track and easily one of the top 10 tracks of the 2010s 'DIY rock' era (we'll make the official list soon), is such a universally appealing beauty. I refer back to the second verse constantly in my mind: "How do I know that I'm alive? / I think I'll start a farm in Australia / Take walks just to sit around blocking moon beams, on a desert or on a beach / That's how I’ll know that I’m alive." Today we're premiering the long-deserved music video.
In a recent FADER interview about bands that influenced him, Sam Ray, of American Pleasure Club and Ricky Eat Acid, said: "[Attic Abasement are] one of those artists that found an audience that was not there when they first put their albums out… The sense of lyricism is there, the wittiness, the darkness, but in such a traditional pop songwriting context."
What I mean is that Attic Abasement matters to certain people a lot.
Today, the increasingly iconic indie label Father/Daughter Records, did a great thing. They announced a limited-edition reissue, with 1,000 copies in red with bone splatter (a very fitting color description if there ever was one) and a new shirt designed by Joel Kirschenbaum, who did the "Australia" music video. Two bonus tracks that were previously only found on local Rochester compilations — "Get What You Wanted" and "Marijuana" — are included, too, and it all comes out April 6.
Pre-order now because owning Dancing Is Depressing, like Dancing Is Depressing, is a once-in-a-lifetime special thing.
