Localized Music: D. Rider’s Mother Of Curses, A Tundra's What Are You? Looking At
D. Rider, Mother Of Curses
U.S. Maple wasn’t a band with casual fans. Over its 10-year career, the local band’s wheezing, collapsible rock earned the highest walkout percentage of any underground stalwarts, and a permanent spot in the hearts of noise-rock addicts.
U.S. Maple wasn’t a band with casual fans. Over its 10-year career, the local band’s wheezing, collapsible rock earned the highest walkout percentage of any underground stalwarts, and a permanent spot in the hearts of noise-rock addicts.
But even with that pedigree, former U.S. Maple guitarist Todd Rittman’s debut record as a frontman with D. Rider is strange. Magic Markers and spray-paint cans double as percussion, analog electronics burble and shriek in the sonic background, and most of the recognizable instruments seem to have been played through busted amps.
That D. Rider shies away from verse-chorus-verse conventions should come as no surprise—more typical is "The Marksman,” an endlessly cascading din in which Rittman's inimitable, uncanny guitar lead snakes across a stuttering groove. What might have been a fine album of instrumentals is somewhat undone by the atonal, multitracked vocals, which bring to mind the slow-motion psychedelia of Rittman's other current project, avant-garde supergroup Singer. But, on occasion, the schizophrenic sound works: The fractured rhythms and foreboding atmosphere reach a skittish apex on the addictive “Body To Body (To Body),” but it’s the relative clarity of acoustic dirge "Welcome Out" that proves most memorable. Grade: C+
A Tundra's What Are You? Looking At
Twenty seconds into the A-side of A Tundra’s new 7-inch single, “Shell Ron Hubbard” disintegrates into the muffled clatter that marked its fine 2007 LP Man Or Woman, Laughing Or Crying. But moments later, the song rights itself and unfolds at a casual sway that recalls the seesaw pleasures of warped vinyl. While the crisp production makes sense of the trio’s jumble of distortion and clarity, it also does the disservice of highlighting the singers’ thin, flat, thoroughly indie rock pipes.
The guitars get turned up on the B-side “The Yaz Record Mart,” which moves at a head-bobbing shuffle despite a structure consisting almost entirely of abrupt left turns. A Tundra has long mined the territory where jazz-rock finesse bleeds into chaotic dissonance; here, the meandering guitar lines and off-kilter drumming coalesce with a driving sense of purpose.
The vinyl comes with a download coupon that includes the catchy bonus track “Salvador Dali Pardon My French Fry.” Sing-songy melodies coast over stunted arpeggios, before a stripped-down coda brings the EP to a surprisingly tender resolution. Grade: B-
