Ed Schrader's Music Beat, And Guest Member Dan Deacon, Explain Their 'Riddles'

Riddles, the third album by Ed Schrader's Music Beat, is a fascinating piece of work that is both ugly and beautiful, often at the same time. The beauty of this music is in the trance-inducing pulse that drives it; a chaos of pulsing, incessant rhythms.The sound is reminiscent of two bands that captured my musical world around 1978 — the aggressively minimalist electronics-and-poetry duo Suicide and the dark, futuristic sounds of Pere Ubu's Dub Housing.

To make matters even foggier, the duo that is Ed Schrader's Music Beat is, at least for this record, a trio, with their friend (and ours) Dan Deacon, as producer, recording engineer and co-writer. Simply stated, Ed Schrader is the lyricist and singer and Devlin Rice the bass player. But, of course, it's more complicated than that.

To provide some clarity and shed some light on their shadows, Ed, Devlin and Dan were kind enough to walk us through their creative process, introduce us to their muse, explain their motivations and explore the happy accidents that gave birth to this odd and captivating piece of work.

1. "Dunce"

Ed Schrader: With "Dunce," I was really trying to capture the essence of Arthur Seaton, the main character of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" — a great piece of kitchen sink fiction I recently read where our man, Arthur, is constantly at odds with his vices, brought on by post-trauma and repressed rage at having to comply with factory life. He becomes numb and lashes out on the weekends in an alcohol-soaked spending spree, which always finds him in a damp laundry pile of regret Monday morning.

I feel like we all get sucked in that quicksand one way or another — but it's also about being tough and savvy even when someone is belittling you. Keep your eye on the prize!

Despite all of us being close friends for years, this song, being the first we dove into, was a way for each of us to learn our methods and approaches in this new dynamic as co-writers and collaborators. I really love Ed as a lyricist and the mantras he creates fascinate me. I wanted to make sure we utilized his lyrical style in shaping the song form as much as possible. When