Rider / Horse

Rider / Horse

Matted

Ever / Never

***"Holed up in their Kingston, NY, hideout, the Rider/Horse gang is growing. What began as a duo delivering stripped-down post-punk screeds has now evolved into a full-blown rock band with the addition of Zoots Houston on pedal steel (who also appeared on Feed ‘Em Salt & Select Trials) and Jared Ashdown on bass. Their latest for ever/never, Matted, finds Rider/Horse as unrelenting as ever. Singer/guitarist Corey Plump’s sung-spoke shouts (honed during his Spray Paint days) remain an inimitable totem of the contemporary underground, working as both blunt confessionals and clarion calls for the terminally frustrated. And while the band’s minimalist industrial clatter is still its sonic foundation, the strains of mutant funk that could always be picked out of the junkyard play a slightly larger role, with Ashdown’s bass and Chris Turco’s drums combining for roaring grooves on tracks such as “Run the Rabbit” and “Empty Boxes.” There has always been something a little mysterious and foreboding about the Rider/Horse sound, as if a shadowy menace follows them from town to town. On Matted, this force has been harnessed and added to the arsenal, as ghostly shrieks of electronic noise haunt nearly every track and reach an apex on the pulsing electronic dust storm that is “Toen.” If one ever contemplated how an outfit like Rider/Horse might grow and develop, well, Matted is your answer. Rider/Horse is locked in and ready to do crimes, producing what is certainly their most dense and fully realized album yet. These guys are nowhere...

Rider / Horse

Feed 'Em Salt

Ever / Never

One hundred miles north of New York City is a post-industrial hardscrabble up-and-down town called Kingston that currently lies somewhere in-between. Kingston is where Rider/Horse came to exist, and where they now call home. Before the Rider/Horse team-up, Cory played guitar and sang in Spray Paint, while Chris was a hired gun for the likes of Trans Am, Les Savy Fav and Scene Creamers.

Rider / Horse

Select Trials

Ever / Never

***One hundred miles north of New York City is a post-industrial hardscrabble up-and-down town called Kingston that currently lies somewhere in-between. Kingston is where Rider/Horse came to exist, and where they now call home. Before the Rider/Horse team-up, Cory played guitar and sang in Spray Paint, while Chris was a hired gun for the likes of Trans Am, Les Savy Fav and Scene Creamers. When normal life forced them to press pause, the construction of Select Trials became an almost daily obsession/meditation for the duo. Recorded, assembled and mixed by Chris, with sounds from a makeshift dub zone set up in the (shuttered-at-the-time) venue Cory owns, Select Trials is a pitch-perfect distillation of C & C’s mithering. “Tremolo Harm” is a high-tension wire that leads into the horizon-vanishing tones of “Chime Inn.” Other tracks, like “Guns In The Snow” and “Prawn Ranch,” radiate with drum-driven menace, echoing Big Black’s foreboding clang. “Sleeping In The Box” drills deep into the salt of the earth, searching vainly for sustenance, while “Today’s Gains” hurts like a weary back after a long shift. Finally, “Nitetime White” pulls down the shades and blots out the sun. With Select Trials—the debut album from Rider/Horse—Ever/Never Records brings you a doozy for the ages.