Michael Rider sings of the anxieties of life while mixing the traditional piano of their past with innovative electronic production, creating an ethereal pop experience. They have Cycle, their fourth studio album coming out May 13th with Grimalkin Records. They stopped by for a quick chat about their art and music.
Q) You put our your first album, Lighthouse, over ten years ago. How have you changed as an artist and what do you think has stayed the same?
Wow! I released that album in 2011. To be honest with you, I really can’t grasp much about that younger version of me. That time seems like a life ago. I can say that my love of heavy drums, drama, synth, piano, and poetry is still very much in me today. I will say that I can still relate to that sense of longing. Unfortunately not much would change in that department all those years later, but maybe that’s just existentialism. I’m still longing, searching. It does get better! Go to therapy. I do remember the overwhelm of creating music, having to bare these forces: words, music.. these forces that I didn’t really know much about. To be honest, I still don’t know their entire gravity to this day, but I’m much more aware of their powers. Music is still a mystery now, but I’m much more familiar and comfortable with that process of unraveling. Being 15, when I recorded that album with Justin Jaro, I was grabbing the bull by the horns. Now I feel like I’m the bull.
Q) Was there a central theme you tried to explore on your upcoming album, Cycle?
Cycle was an end to a chapter. Firstly, it marked 10 years of making music. It was the first time I was releasing material that didn’t make it onto previous recordings. “Battle of Heart” and “Ecstasy” had been with me for many years. That album also was super joyous because it was my “pandemic money album.” So in that way it was kind of great not having to worry about studio bills. Thematically, the album is really about cycles, beginning and endings coming together, history repeating itself.
Q) Did you try any new practices with the production of your latest album?
If you’re talking about my latest album being the one that hasn’t come out yet – YES! I’ll say here that it’s a record produced solely by myself and my producer M the Myth, also my dearest friend. It’s the first time where we worked off demos that I made on Ableton. Anyone that knows me, I’ve been historically challenged with technology, but I’m trying to be better. I don’t want to use that as an excuse anymore. It’s just electronica gorgeousness in a cave. It has Enya reverb, lots of vocals, gauzy, licky, luscious goodness. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever made with such a strong message about a critical chapter of my life. It is really all the best parts of me into one, not trying to work on my weaknesses, but celebrating and accentuating the positives.
Q) What other musicians do you listen to keep inspired?
Oh my gosh so many. I came of age listening to Charlotte Martin, who I got to study under as a student in her Something Like A Music School, Imogen Heap, Tegan & Sara, St. Vincent, Tori Amos. But recently I have been such a fangirl of this Irish singer-songwriter, shoe-gaze queen, Gemma Hayes. Queen of longing. I recently saw Half Waif’s album release show in New York last October. That is such an incredible album. Also I love Margaret Glaspy and Jesca Hoop. Eli Owens!
Q) You are also a painter; do you think the two creative pursuits affect each other?
Absolutely. The great Joni Mitchell talked about the duality of painting and music being “crop rotation.” “When one field stops producing, go to another.” I got this epiphany the other day that painting makes me feel safe and music is somewhat dangerous. Music has the air of athleticism, exercising the demons, fighting with yourself, dancing in the face of darkness and space. Painting is meditation. It’s kind of the same thing just opposite ends. However, I think that it can also be vice versa of course. I also employ both of their natures to each other. I feel like I paint when I make music, and I feel like I’m painting melodies. All the same “sensations.” I do love an angry, fighting song faced inwards, spiraling and ascending with diminished chords that is full of drama but is in complete meditation and suspension. I have a song called “Patience” from the new album that is like this.
Q) Do you have a specific creative process when you write new music?
I am just more critical of my efforts as a lyricist. I was very lucky to be in proximity of Lucy Dacus’s rise to stardom. I saw some of her first shows in New York. Lucy is such a skilled wordsmith and lyricist. I greatly have been inspired by her sharpness in depicting her world that way. I didn’t realize the value that words and lyrics can hold, it’s like a whole other color, it can really add an entire new layer to the music. By nature, I’m more drawn to texture and rhythm, the piano is a percussive instrument. I’m a bit more “primal.” So I guess I’m learning to dip into the more “intellectual.” I didn’t really care about the lyrics. But words are mantra and manifestation. The words hold such a visceral experience. What you say is important – especially when you repeat it. I still want to be dangerous, but I am more mindful now. My older work was so dark. I wish I could have drove in a bit deeper. Why was I so upset? I’m finding this out now by the way. Now I’m trying to be a bit more directional in telling these stories. So much of my older music is from the lens of being in it, being in the storm. As I grow older and take more of a role of a “writer,” I’m learning this idea of reflection in retrospect. I think that is very important. It changes the work from being in the moment to being timeless.
Q) If people want more information about your or your projects, where should they go?
They can join my mailing list on my website, michaelwrider.com, or follow me on Instagram, where I am pretty active.
Final four questions –we ask everybody.
Q) When the zombies take over the world where will you be?
I’d be the biggest, baddest zombie. I’d probably be in a sunny field eating someone.
Q ) What is your favorite Fandom
I don’t know much about Fandoms. I’m definitely in Charlotte Martin’s fandom.
Q) What piece of art, be it in the form of music, a book, a film or picture, do you think people must experience before they die?
Recently I’ve been thinking of Cy Twombly. The great painter Cy Twombly, who passed actually in 2011. Twombly was from Lexington, Virginia as well. And a Taurus! He inspired both my high school art teacher/mentor Mary Scurlock as well as myself. That language of abstraction is very stereotypical to most people. He is one of those artists where people will say “my kid can do that” kind of thing. But seeing his works in person. I just recently saw Gagosian’s show of Twombly a couple weeks ago, and like everything he does, it is so powerful, beautiful, intimate, personal, all at the same time. So physical, present, strong yet emotionally honest. I’d say go see that work in the physical and think about your power in this human form, in the here and now. Not over a screen, in person. We are alive. Our lives our pure poetry. The dirty and the beautiful.
Q) Give one fact that most people would not believe about you?
My mother was born in Mexico in a small town called Rosita
Paper Phoenix ink 