Ed Schrader’s Music Beat Share Video for New Song “European Moons”
Nightclub Daydreaming Due Out March 25 via Carpark; Schrader Issues Personal Statement on Their Gender Identity
Mar 09, 2022
Photography by Micah E Wood
Baltimore-based post-punk duo Ed Schrader’s Music Beat (vocalist Ed Schrader and bassist Devlin Rice) are releasing a new album, Nightclub Daydreaming, on March 25 via Carpark. Now they have shared its fourth single, “European Moons,” via a video. Schrader has also issued a lengthy personal statement about their gender identity and preferred pronouns. Check out the statement and the video below.
Schrader’s statement is as follows:
“In the past few weeks, I’ve made a big decision. I’ve decided to give you the full me. I’ve decided to speak openly about something that I had never spoken to anyone about. The me that I’ve been repressing in hopes of not making other people feel uncomfortable. But that’s not a life—that’s an inhumane purgatory that I am done subjecting myself to.
“That said, I have always felt like a woman and my pronouns are they/them.
“The stage and the studio have always been a safe space for me, where I can share my deepest struggles, joys and laughs. In your art, you can’t lie. That’s why I have always chosen riddles and cryptic lyrics in my art. I could never lie, but I could disguise the truth.
“With Nightclub Daydreaming I continued this precedent, essentially telling my autobiography through fictional characters and surreal landscapes. But these are the stories of my fear, my neuroses, my ecstasy and my journey.
“The first single off of the record, ‘This Thirst,’ is about the thirst for my true self, and features the first time I ever referred to myself as a woman: ‘Who will rock you to the fire / Who’s the priestess to ordain?’
“On ‘Black Pearl,’ I sing of two lovers disconnected by an ocean, representing the personal dichotamy between my true self and who I was presenting to the world. In retrospect, you can hear the yearning as I sing ‘I want to see you really…a foreigner, even home now / I shut in vaults to heal you.’ I was the foreigner whom no one had ever met, besides my bathroom mirror. When home alone, I would wear women’s clothing, put on makeup, blast M.I.A. and Yelle, and somehow this felt like a crime that no one would ever accept.
“You can hear both my euphoria and trepidation on songs like ‘Berliner.’ Deep down, I was beginning to feel my real self emerging in an undeniable way, and I was horrified by it. It felt as if others held the key to my own self worth through their acceptance, or lack thereof.
“On ‘European Moons,’ which we release today, I depict myself as a marionette, at the whims of a puppet master forcing me to present a distorted and untrue version of myself. ‘my posture’s at your strings / too much of coded sighs / I’d like to see you in the night.’ It was my true self that I could only see at night.
“I have always felt like a woman and, moving forward, I will begin following that path one day at a time. Only the future knows where exactly that path will lead me, but I’m doing it my way. I will no longer only see my true self at night.”
Jay Buim directed the “European Moons” video, which stars Susan Juvet,
When Nightclub Daydreaming was announced the band shared its first two singles, “This Thirst” and “Berliner,” the former via a Gillian Waldo-directed video. “Berliner” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared its third single, “Echo Base,” which was inspired by the late Star Wars actress and acclaimed author, Carrie Fisher, and was accompanied by a horror movie themed video. “Echo Base” was also one of our Songs of the Week.
Nightclub Daydreaming is the band’s fourth album and the follow-up to 2018’s Dan Deacon-produced Riddles, which was their first album for Carpark. Schrader and Rice began writing the album in 2019 and started playing some of the songs live in February 2020 on tour with Deacon, where they were joined by drummer Kevin O’Meara before COVID-19 stopped all touring. Alas those would be their last shows with O’Meara, who died in October 2020. The album transformed from the upbeat disco record they initially intended it to be to something darker (and deeper), with O’Meara’s death weighing on them during its creation. Nightclub Daydreaming was recorded and mixed with Craig Bowen at Tempo House in Baltimore over a two-week period.
Schrader had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “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.”
Ed Schrader’s Music Beat 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
4/9/22 - Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
4/10/22 - El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
4/13/22 - OKC @ Opolis
4/14/22 - St. Louis @ The Sinkhole
4/16/22 - 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)
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