With the release of 2018’s Dan Deacon-produced album Riddles, the Baltimore-based post-punk duo Ed Schrader’s Music Beat — Devlin Rice and Ed Schrader — turned heads nationally and elsewhere.
The Baltimore duo’s fourth album Nightclub Daydreaming is slated for a March 25, 2022 release through Carpark Records. The album’s origins can be traced back to 2019 when Schrader and Rice began writing material with the idea of making a fun, danceable album. The duo, along with touring drumming Kevin O’Meara road-tested the album’s songs while on tour with Dan Deacon in February 2020.
Of course. the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt. As it turned out, sadly, that Dan Deacon tour was one of the last experiences that Schrader and Rice had with O’Meara, who had died in October 2020. O’Meara’s death weighed heavily on their minds as they finished working on the album. It was understandably, an unshakeable moodiness and heartache. As Schrader puts it, “The cave followed us into the discotheque.”
They then went to record and mix Nightclub Daydreaming over a breakneck two-week period with Craig Bowen at Baltimore’s Tempo House. Interestingly, the end result isn’t the album of “sunny disco bangers,” that Rice says the band set out for, but something far deeper and darker. Their long-held reputation for whiplash-inducing stylistic shifts between aggressive and noisy rock and operatic, gloom pop have given way to a single aesthetic that seamlessly fuses those impulses in propulsive, stark arrangements.
“The fun thing about this record is that it’s all at once informed by our more recent lush productions with Dan Deacon, yet spartan and boiled-down, exuding a coldness wrapped in ecstasy, following our time honored trend of never giving people what they expect, but hopefully what they want,” says Schrader.
Along with the album announcement, the Baltimore-based duo released two singles off the forthcoming album and dates for an extensive Spring 2022 tour that the duo (optimistically) have on the books. (The tour includes an April 23, 2022 stop at Union Pool. As always, those dates will be below the proverbial jump.)
Earlier this week, I wrote about Nightclub Daydreaming‘s sparse and uneasy lead single “This Thirst.” Featuring a narrator, who finds his irresistible urges leading him through a surrealistic, chemical-fueled fever dream of desperate back-alley bartering and scheming, uncertainty and existential threats, “This Thirst” is a gritty yet sleek post-punk ripper centered around angular guitar attack, a forceful and driving groove, a rousingly anthemic synth-led chorus and Schrader’s cool delivery. The duo manage to make bleakness and anxiety intense and sexy.
“Berliner,” Nightclub Daydreaming‘s second single is dark and brooding bit of post-punk centered around rumbling and distorted bass, scorching angular attack and unrelenting four-on-the-floor paired with Schrader’s coolly delivered baritone. Much like its immediate predecessor, “Berliner” evokes a bleak and intense, creeping anxiety, flop sweat and bleary-eyed late nights fueled by booze and drugs, lingering ghosts, and fever dreams.
Tour Dates
3/9/22 – Richmond, VA @ The Camel
3/10/22 – Raleigh, NC @ Ruby’s
3/11/22 Atlanta, GA @ Earl’s
3/12/22 Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light
3/14/22 – Dallas, TX @ Deep Ellum
3/15/22 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/16/22 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/17/22 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/18/22 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/19/22 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
3/22/22 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
3/23/22 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive
3/25/22 – Boise ID @ Treefort Fest
3/29/22 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
4/1/22 – Seattle, WA @ Freakout Fest The Crocodile
4/3/22 San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
4/4/22 – Sacramento, CA @ Starlet Room
4/6/22 – Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer supporting Sean Nicholas Savage
4/7/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
4/8 – San Diego, CA @ Whistle Stop’s Bar
4/9/22 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
4/10/22 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
4/13/22 – OKC @ Opolis
4/14/22 – St. Louis @ The Sinkhole
4/15 – Madison, WI @ Der Rathskeller (University of Wisconsin)
4/16/22 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
4/18/22 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern
4/20/22 – Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
4/21/22 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
4/22/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Dave Kiss Presents / Kung Fu Necktie
4/23/22 – Brooklyn, NY @ AdHoc / Union Pool
4/30/22 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar (RECORD RELEASE PARTY)
Tickets and more information is available here: https://www.edschradersmusicbeat.com/tour
