I’m pleased to feature “Anyone Upstairs” from RYDER today with mix emotions, as I’m loving this new direction from Canadian musician Ryder Havdale, but bummed that I won’t have the chance to see it performed live tonight at his show at the Silver Dollar.

Ryder Havdale is no stranger to the road: from 2007 to 2013 he embarked on countless international tours with his former project, the Mohawk Lodge, taking him across Canada, the UK, the U.S., Europe and Australia. Now, after living in a self-imposed year-long exile in Berlin, he exchanged his guitars for synths and his band for machines. Havdale channeled the punk rock approach that fuelled his elemental desire for touring, and experimentally, injects it into the pounding, electronic rhythms of European techno and krautrock with a dash of lyrics and synth pop for good measure. The result is a rhythmic, complex and layered musical texture that is technological and futuristic, but at its heart, also very human.

The result is the BERLIN album, featuring Arlen Thompson (Wolf Parade) on drums and contributions from Maylee Todd, Eamon McGrath and The Backhomes.  His show tonight is his first show in Toronto as RYDER, more dates coming up in July with The New Division.  Follow RYDER on Facebook here.

TOUR DATES: 2016 (more dates TBA)

July 1 – Košice, SK @ Lucia Bana Festival
July 5 – Ceske Budejovice, CZ @ Velbloud
July 7 – Vienna, AT @ Kramladen
July 12 – Kecskemet, HU @ Valentino Kavehaz *
July 13 – Plzen, CZ @ Živá Ulice festival
July 14 – Hamburg, DE @ Astra Stube *
July 15 – Offenbach, DE @ Hafen 2 *
July 16 – Berlin, DE @ Mme Claude *
* w/ The New Division