Horse Lords

“This is a band that believes that experimental music has the potential to be more than merely aesthetic, and every one of their choices—like taking apart their instruments and rebuilding them according to an alternate musical logic—speaks to a desire to upend the status quo” — Pitchfork

Horse Lords, the avant-rock group born out of Baltimore, began as a trio with drummer Sam Haberman, guitarist Owen Gardner, and bassist Max Eilbacher, soon adding alto saxophonist Andrew Bernstein to the core ensemble. The band layers kaleidoscopic shards of grooves, polyrhythms, and tones that shift and turn in on themselves, hypnotically metamorphosizing their starting points into unpredictable fresh soundscapes. 

Horse Lords started as a not-so-serious exercise in exploring just intonation—an alternate tuning system used by cutting edge composers such as La Monte Young—within the bounds of a rock outfit. Since then, they’ve gone on to release ten studio, live, and collaboration albums, utilizing this microtonal language across sixteen years, sharpening their live chops along the way. 

Here, they come to PS21 in support of their new record, Demand To Be Taken to Heaven Alive! set to release on June 12th. An electrifying leap forward for the band’s shared language, Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! aims to liberate the listener into a spiritual, ecstatic, and utopic dimension of sound.