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D. Rider D. Constructs What You Know About Music

Former U.S. Maple guitarist forges on with new band, same mission

D. Rider

Mother of Curses

Released on Feb 17, 2009

Todd Rittmann wants to destroy rock music. At least that was his goal when he was the guitarist of the Chicago-based band U.S. Maple. The group banded together back in 1995 after meeting at Northern Illinois University, and realizing that they all wanted to start from square one with rock music. To say that they were deconstructionists is putting it lightly—their music is pretty impossible to listen to, especially if you’re a devotee of catchy hooks and sing-along choruses like yours truly.

D. Rider, Rittmann’s latest effort, is not all that dissimilar to U.S. Maple. Their debut album, Mother of Curses, lacks any kind of cohesion and seems to be quite proud of that. It’s not often that the album cover art serves as a perfect indicator of what you’re about to listen to, but the embroidered woman whose torso looks like it’s been erased serves as the best visual depiction for D. Rider’s experimental sound.

I may not enjoy deconstructed music, but I can appreciate D. Rider’s ability to do it pretty well. If I have to listen to noise and fragmented lyrics for 37 minutes, Rittmann had better be the engineer behind it. While there doesn’t always seem to be a method to his madness, there are a few moments of clarity in the album that redeem it from the category of “trying so hard to be experimental, a five-year-old could have played this.” However, I’m sure D. Rider wouldn’t appreciate my attempts to make sense out of an album that is obviously not meant to have the aforementioned clarity that I enjoy.

“Touchy” is one of the highlights of Mother of Curses, because it manages to combine different kinds of noise and have the sounds complement one another, rather than compete. In the first 20 seconds, the manufactured drums and Alvin the Chipmunk-esque noise rising over them set it up to be a song that’s more in the style of math rock. However, once those 20 seconds are up, listeners are dragged down a level to listen to creepy vocals and oddly slow percussion. For some reason though, the radical change in style works for the song—the juxtaposition turns it into a track so uncomfortable that I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder while listening to it to see if there was someone about to kill me. Might not sound like the best effect that a song could have, but hey—it’s a unique experience.

“Welcome Out” is a mess of horns, guitar, and scratchy vocals, turning this track into Rittman’s own kind of twisted symphony. His rough voice sounds like it’s composed of equal parts smoking and drinking, with an added dash of apathy for good measure—he almost slurs through the lyrics. That might not sound like a positive, but it works especially well on this rambling track. It’d be an interesting one to see live, if only to watch this many instruments battle for attention on stage and in the song.

D. Rider may be too experimental for my conventional tastes, but I’ve got to respect them for what they’re able to do—construct songs that revel in a mess of their deconstructed elements. If Rittmann didn’t feel like he completely dismantled rock music in U.S. Maple, he’s definitely on his way to doing so with D. Rider. 

Posted by Alyssa Vincent on Feb 10, 2009 @ 6:00 am