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Different tunings, repetitive and hypnotic polyrhythms, pulsating drums and bass, energetic guitars, electronics and saxophone create a kind of music that is not only complex and utterly mesmerizing, but also unbridled and playful at the same time. Imagine African music traditions, krautrock, postpunk, classical minimalism, free jazz and microtonality being thrown in one gigantic blender.
On stage, they make their music a vessel for collective ecstasy to live out flagrantly with their audience, showing that imagining new futures is not scary, but rather joyous.
Guitarist Owen Gardner and saxophonist / percussionist Andrew Bernstein met in the ‘00s at Goucher College in Baltimore, the former steeped in global folk musics and experimental music, the latter a budding composer. They met bassist Max Eilbacher, who has subsequently blazed a path in electroacoustic music, and drummer Sam Haberman to create their first album in 2012.
Ten years later their post-covid album from 2022, Comradely Objects, still sounds focused, urgent and quirky at the same time. And last year they released their latest album, called As It Happened: Horse Lords Live.
The band played great shows at festivals like Rewire and Le Guess Who? (even twice), just to name a few, always mesmerizing the audience with their music.
“It was all there: the circular, part Tuareg/part math rock guitar riffs; the galloping bass lines that hold it all together and caused spastic dancing in the crowd; and a mix of either dual drummers or drums and sax […] that send things spiraling into ecstasy. Horse Lords music defies time, in the sense of it never locks in a four on the floor, but also in the sense that each song is its own universe. The pummeling, hypnotic repetition begs the question: did that song last 3 minutes or 17? Is the song over, or is this a dramatic stop to then showcase the band’s tight precision and ability to drop right back into the notched groove? Is this 1960s free jazz, 2000s post rock, 2010s funky math rock? The answer Tuesday night was: yes.” – Josh Keller, Reviler
