D Rider 'Mother of Curses' album

D. Rider is a new rock band founded and fronted by guitarist/singer Todd Albert Rittmann. Founding member of U. S. Maple, Singer (both Drag City), and Robert Johnson and the Browns, T. Rittmann is also an occasional member of Cheer-Accident and has played with many other avant-music notables including cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and Rhys Chatham. In March of 2008 Todd recruited a 5-piece band to perform some songs he was working on.

The lineup included keyboardist/cornet player Andrea Faught, who also works with Cheer-Accident, and saxophonist/singer Noah Tabakin, who is a member of punk marching band, Mucca Pazza. This early show the group performed was enough to convince Rittmann, Faught and Tabakin that they should continue to make music together and collaborate on some recorded material. These songs have become the album Mother of Curses.

THE RHYTHM STILL
The album's narrative begins with a mash of rhythmic sound. Stick clicks, tambourine, bass drum, and the sound of magic marker writing on cardboard all congeal into a coherent boogie only to be suddenly eclipsed by the driving stomp of "Arranged Marriage to no Toms". The title is an allusion to the minimal drum set-up used throughout the album. Kick, snare, hi-hat, and crash cymbal were the foundation of every song on the record, and every song began with an improvisation on this stripped-down trap set. This is a spontaneous distillation of more complex forms into a new recipe for pop. This is divining a reinterpretation of the heartbeat of rock. This beat is not the foundation, it is the landscape. Organic and ignorant. The here and now in real time. Everything that follows must submit to its nuance.

TO UNDO THE UNDO
The approach to the drums is reflected by the method in the studio. All the songs were deliberately recorded using 16 tracks or less. This is a conscious attempt to make decision making in the recording process a part of composing the music. This strategy doesn't rule out excess, instead it forces a commitment to a sound or gesture before the end result is completely understood. This idea of commitment is familiar to anyone who has ever used a 4 track to record music and been forced to bounce tracks in order to free up space for another overdub. Imperfection becomes advantage, and the writing of a song becomes an evolution where the last step cannot be undone. Impulse and instinct are the only instructions for this quick-set cement.

THE TOOLS BUILD THE TOOLBOX
In contrast to the constraints maintained in writing and recording, the kitchen sink approach was used in every other aspect of generating and manipulating the sounds. While modern technology is employed to a degree in the capturing of the music, much more primitive means were used in the processing. Much of the equipment used on Mother Of Curses is at least 20 year-old technology, and most of what sounds like modern computer editing is creative use of cast away gear. This is not meant to be some kind of study in retro purism. This is an anything goes, pre-vintage salvage operation. Cassette tape, cell phone, reel to reel, and stockpile of obsolete outboard gear were enlisted to capture and mutilate a variety of instrumentation from harmonica to spray paint. Triangle even. If it emits a sound or a signal can be run through it, it will taste the limelight. But don't be mislead, this is not experimental art noise. This is rock music.

HELL WILL SUFFER ME
All this can be experienced in the flesh. This is no recording project. This ain't a postcard from a theme park. This is what D. Rider can do at the moment to demonstrate the sound they make live, in real time, on street level. All these ideas are translations from their twins' language. To decode and recode for astonishment itself. These are no illusions. These are methods that reveal their essence.

D. Rider plans to play some shows in and around their native Chicago before the release of Mother of Curses, and embark on a North American tour in the early months of 2009. Although T. Rittmann plays drums on the album, D. Rider has enlisted the help of Theo Katsounis (A Tundra, Locks) to drum for their upcoming shows.

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D Rider - Mother of Curses