Before Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Ed made music under the name Ed Schrader, layering trippy sounds over pounding drums. A 10" from four years back documents this era, before Ed expanded the project into Music Beat. In 2009 Devlin Rice (also of Nuclear Power Pants) joined Ed for a one-off show. The band formed quite unintentionally. Ed was invited to play a rave of all things and, before almost deciding to opt out, decided to join forces with his roommate Devlin for the performance.

Playing as a duo, the show was magical - Ed doing manic extended versions of his songs, crooning to a glow stick friendly crowd under a full moon in September, while Devlin raged alongside making for a winning combination that was too good to leave as a one night affair. This mind meld took the left field paranoid pop that Ed was composing and added a powerful low end power chug from the jug of eternal rock, raising the whole project to a more visceral live experience.

Since then the band has done considerable touring with acts such as Future Islands, Lightning Bolt and Dan Deacon, and really whipped up some enthusiasm based on their minimal and real rock vision.

The band issued a 7" on Load Records last year called 'Sermon / Rats' and response has been pretty damn positive:

"A crazily interesting Baltimore duo using bass, drums, and vocals to do something very pummelsome in a punk way without cowtowing to any of the genres cliches." - The Wire

"Ed Schrader is one of the most engaging artists of our generation." - Vice Magazine

"Ed is a master songsmith, a one man Butthole Surfers who has reduced pop and punk to their most basic building blocks." - Village Voice

'JAZZ MIND'

When I'm In My Car | Sermon

UTR053 | CD / LP | 11 tracks, 21 minutes | Buy