by Caroline Nieto (@caroline.nieto)
When Horsegirl released their debut album Versions of Modern Performance in 2022, they occupied a niche space in indie rock pioneered by bands like Sonic Youth—and yes, they’ve heard that comparison before. Over distorted riffs and half-bored melodies, Horsegirl put their own spin on the nineties rock revival, their DIY feel a result of their days as a garage band in Chicago. Though the band recently relocated to New York, they returned to Chicago to record their newest record with producer/musician Cate Le Bon. Phonetics On and On is a departure from the Horsegirl of 2022—the band has reduced its scale, forming a sound that’s intentionally stripped down. Experimenting with a “less is more” mindset, there’s so much they can accomplish with so much less.
Horsegirl has wanted to scale back for a while. In their 2022 “What’s in My Bag” video with Amoeba, they expressed their love for the band Deerhoof, with drummer Gigi Reece saying, “Hopefully down the line I’ll have a drum kit that is as simple as Greg [Saunier]’s.” Saunier is known to play as minimally as a kick, snare, and cymbal, but Reece pares down in their own way, like trading their normal drumsticks for brushes on the track “Frontrunner.” The band plays around with a purposeful emptiness, reminiscent of their favorite minimalist groups like Young Marble Giants, and with the kind of whimsical quality of a Belle and Sebastian or Camera Obscura. But Horsegirl’s musical references are more homage than conscious emulation—with this record, they create something entirely new, shedding their endless comparisons and solidifying a name for themselves.
A lot of these new songs’ freshness comes from leaning into spontaneity. The album’s lead single, “2468,” came into the studio a scramble of ideas and melodies, becoming the song heard on the album after motivation from Le Bon to lean into the unknown in the recording booth. Singer/guitarist Penelope Lowenstein describes their vision for the song as a little girl singing to herself while walking to school, with the natural evolution that song might take. Embellished with a violin and tambourine, “2468” exemplifies the new Horsegirl sound: simple and unselfconscious. The song demands being skipped to, toe-tapped to, head-bobbed to. It’s the kind of tune you’ll have to evict from your mind at the end of the day.
Besides the song’s title, the only real words sung in “2468” are simply “they walk in twos.” The rest of the song repeats “da da da” under the growing percussion and violin line. There isn’t a song on the album without a “da”, “doo”, or “la,” a conscious choice that’s relayed in the song “Information Content,” where singer/guitarist Nora Cheng sings “I’m translating my talk to tones.” This song paints the album’s title as an expression of self conscious communication, where you’ve “acknowledged every sigh with something that meant la la la,” because sometimes that’s all there is to say. The reduction of the lyrics into mere sounds presents Phonetics On and On as an emblem of the utterable but unspeakable. The instrumental solo at the end of the song communicates this feeling as much as the words do, with a quiet cacophony of cymbals and muted strums that push back against this self-imposed repression.
While this album is certainly an indicator of change for Horsegirl, there are several tracks that feel faithful to their indie rock roots. Particularly, “Well I Know You’re Shy” is an instant classic, fitted with a clean lead guitar and tambourine to keep the time. It’s an anthem of new love, the kind that makes you want to embarrass yourself just to keep it. Horsegirl has a knack for writing blithely romantic lyrics, notably in this song, when Lowenstein sings, “Radio tune/when the radio’s blue/listen to your window.” Some of their most creative writing on the album is posed as narration, like in the song “Rock City,” which follows a shepherd who wants to drive a flower truck. The band leaves much to be deciphered when writing in narration, like in the ending of “Rock City,” which denotes a “young man sickened by the sight.” It’s not clear what this sight is, but just as quickly as it’s said, the song picks up its tempo and leaves the lyric behind.
Despite these more upbeat tracks, there’s a real attention to quiet on the album, especially with songs like “Julie” and “In Twos.” The former is low and confessional, a kind of duet between the voice and bassline. “Julie” is another meditation on the downfalls of communication, this time as a two way street as Lowenstein sings “I wish I could tell you what you want.” “In Twos” precedes “2468” as a slower, serious counterpart, where those who walk in twos are “the footprints on the street.” You’re left to wonder whether these prints are “in twos” as two people or as a pair of footsteps. Horsegirl’s lyricism is just sparse enough to leave an opening for this loneliness to settle in—if “2468” is a little girl skipping to school, “In Twos” is the girl grown up, waking up and wandering.
These two tracks feel like a manifestation of some musical double consciousness—in a way, they’re equally indicative of the direction in which Horsegirl is heading. Where some artists settle into their sound on their second album, the band takes care not to find their footing, leaving room for pensive ballads, freak folk, and indie rock hits to exist in the same body of work. Even through all of these varying sounds, each song contains some form of babbled phonetic, making clear that if communication is so inadequate, then it doesn’t really matter anyway.