Attic Abasement to return with first new album in a decade, Moonlight Passes On

The project, led by singer-songwriter Mike Rheinheimer with a rotating cast of local musicians, has largely served as an outlet for working through doubt and. Where 2016’s Dream News was captured live with a full band, Moonlight Passes On sees Rheinheimer playing nearly every instrument, recording songs in layered sessions with producer and engineer Ben Morey at Rochester’s Submarine Sound Studio.

New singles "Bruised Water Moon" and "T-Shirt" follow "Summer Coast", released in April, as the third preview of an album that emerged from several years of introspection and solitude.

Speaking about how the album came to be, Rheinheimer says, “I had a handful of songs sitting on the shelf for years but had just been inspired over the course of a few nights in my basement in early 2023." His approach to playing all of the instruments on the album is a return to the methods of earlier Attic Abasement albums, Dancing is Depressing (2010) and Swim Through the Dirt (2008). “That moniker and legacy has always felt like an eternal outlet for me. It feels like a part of my bedrock I can always come back to.”

“I never really sit down trying to write a song, I just kind of mess around until I come across something nice,” Rheinheimer continues. “The ones that turn out best seem to be the ones that I stay out of the way and just let grow. My approach with lyrics is kind of similar. I’ll sit playing guitar searching for a melody with my voice. For a lot of the songs I’ll try to enter a kind of meditative head space where there’s just kind of chunks of primordial imagery floating around that I can grab chucks to fit a puzzle together.”

Moonlight Passes On artwork

Moonlight Passes On tracklist

"Mirrored In Plastic"
"Bruised Water Moon"
"T-Shirt"
"Lone Domino"
"Plyer Sky"
"Stunned Along"
"Glad To Recede"
"Hunting Space"
"Summer Coat"
"Thirteen Bar Blues"
"Waiting List"