On their brand-new LP, Phonetics On and On, Horsegirl looks back to find out where they’re going.
In the wake of their closing the book on teenagehood, the trio reaches for another reality to grasp, unearthing a past universe to climb inside of: one of brightly-lit, grassy afternoons outside, untethered expressions, bare feet on creaky floors accompanied by non-lexical conversations. Through Phonetics’ frolicking arrangements with nostalgia floating through its scales, it’s plain to see that Horsegirl has reclaimed the uninhibited artists they were as children, holding them close to the chest throughout each track.
If I were to describe Horsegirl’s sophomore album using just a few words–which I won’t be doing, as I seldom use few words and I intend to write a full-length album review–I would decipher it as “language-arts rock”. It’s a label that not only embodies the album’s natural linguistic play, but also sums up the record’s deeply thoughtful, word-wise narrators: Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng, and Gigi Reece.
The English-major musicians do, conversely, use very few words in the making and writing of Phonetics. Instantly as the album unfurls, the homespun, soul-baring sounds guided by few lines come off as a conversation only the best of friends could have–the kind where you may never have to say much at all to know you’ll be immediately understood. It also comes off as an intelligence that few yield: the ability to recognize language as capable of more, where maybe in just eight words you can say a hundred experiences, all the while writing one song.
Phonetics begins with a question. The Chicago-born and New York-based trio, who started as a high school project among three best friends in 2019, find a sincere, delicate transition in their opening track “Where’d You Go?”. The two reverberating lines in dialogue, “Where’d you go? Far, far, far away,” tap the pendulum to swing between Horsegirl’s past and present self, and along with it, a bleeding pen colors lines over their prior distinctions. It’s a slightly mournful exchange, but a much necessary flux into the slower, melodic turn that is growing up and letting go.
Like their opening song, Horsegirl’s entire LP is a product of the trio leaving their hometown of Chicago for college in New York. Phonetics’ soft guitar and light rhythms work to thread space between the coexisting griefs and joys of this move, lending Horsegirl a chance to figure out what kind of musicians they could be in a new state. It’s a transient work meant to be moved through, and yet in a way, also begins a homecoming towards something more enduringly full. It’s a long-distance call, a greeting through the window, a lonely walk–it’s a reminder that things just aren’t the same anymore.
Most songs on the LP are constructed in a similar way: with few words but one ever-present throughline, all accompanied by an aerodynamic whimsy only to be found in Horsegirl’s pop-punk. All together, Horsegirl strips it back to the basics, both lyrically and tactically, chipping away at something closer to a sound they can claim as distinctly theirs. Even throughout their incessant use of half-word syllables, like the lyrics “And they say da da da/And they sing da da da” in the track “Sport Meets Sound”, there’s a semantic tone only few other indie-rockers are capable of unironically pulling off. The twang in their phonetics offers the album as surprisingly accessible, sounding like it was made by and for young people to dance, sing, or instantly memorize all the words to.
“Julie” and “Switch Over” pair up to fill Phonetics’ interior with an achy, tepid temperature that forces you to sit and sort through your own associations about language’s insufficiencies. “Julie I wish I could tell you what you want,” or “Say, say, say, what you wanna say,” lean into the paralyzing feeling of not being able to express your love for someone adequately–except Horsegirl is on the other end of this exchange, hoping for that someone to say what it is that they want. But they’ve also got lines, like those of “In Twos”, that will make you get up and dance (with legs you cannot anymore feel) while simultaneously tearing-up: “Every car that passes by drives to you…The footprints on the street, they walk in twos/Every good thing I find, I find I lose.” It’s for the sensitive, sentimental folks in the scene, who glimpse everything they used to love in each street sign they walk by.
The more time spent with the lyrics, soaking in their unparalleled honesty in somehow always-ending moments, the lighter it’ll feel–Horsegirl takes the collective weight of the in-between and makes it feel like air. The days they sing of do not go unfelt: thoughts of the person you used to love derailing your sleep at night, watching your partner in bed and eagerly waiting for them to wake, the same radio song playing in your head drones on once more.
With that, the foot-tapping, unadorned instruments and word play may just be part of Horsegirl’s new practice in phonic minimalism, and a slight resistance to their blurry, heavily-distorted rock debut album, Versions of Modern Performance. Maybe the change is simply an inevitability of growing up; as the group evolves from the album they once wrote at ages 16 and 17 in the basements of their childhood homes, new experiences call for new melodic textures to resonate.
With this venture and curiosity into brighter audio landscapes, led by Wilco and Deerhunter producer Cate Le Bon, comes off-the-cuff experimentation. On the tracks, you’ll hear the trio take a stab at the violin, or let loose on an impromptu percussion riff to break through the often interchangeable tempos.
They’ve also parted ways from echoing the too-familiar labyrinth of their ‘90s grunge heroes: Sonic Youth, Pavement, and My Bloody Valentine. And while most of us try to find ways to live out the legend of Kim Gordon in our day-to-day lives, Horsegirl decidedly paints a new portrait of who they are now, and who they will no longer be referenced as much younger variants of.
It’s the context we need from the most successful group hailing from an overflowingly talented Chicago DIY scene. Horsegirl emerges alongside their friends Lifeguard, Free Range, Friko, and TV Buddha, who each write up a piece of the era’s house show and zine-making proclivities. (“Hallogallo” is the ongoing zine started by the Lifeguard guitarist–the band Penelope’s brother is also in!–loosely characterizing the Midwest’s teenage scene.)
While picturing Phonetics On and On and its physical incarnation, I’m met with some semblance of a well-used, marked-up book of poetry. The book’s spine is wilting, rendering the mystery of its durability unknown. With drafted stanzas and sporadic one-liners spanning the years, its whole doesn’t have the most coherent meaning or theme, as transparency was never the goal–probably quite the opposite. The writing at times feels unfinished or underdeveloped, and the minor breakthroughs just slightly underwhelming when the sonics continue to repeat themselves in the background. It’s almost as if we’re supposed to nod our heads in acceptance of what’s left unsaid, perhaps in their efforts to not come off as too polished or put together. But even amidst Horsegirl’s charming imperfections, the missing piece is nonetheless noticeable.
I’m not sure if this is true, in fact as I’m writing this sentence I’m starting to not believe it myself, but I think at some point in our lives we each feel an urge to enormously embarrass ourselves through words. Maybe it’s music that helps to muster up the courage. But nonetheless, there is an inner call we wish to heed to say exactly what it is we mean to the people we love, don’t love, and all of the others in between. Even if you deliver the message in a quiet lingering hum or in between rudimentary violin and scrappy drum beats, being shamefully confessional seems to be the biggest knife you can stab through the zeitgeist and the machine.
But for now, the taciturn, somewhat guarded professions and open-ended stories told on Phonetics will have to do, as Horsegirl isn’t set on exposing themselves quite yet. There are words that have yet to materialize on the page, so to speak. Maybe it’ll be album three when they decide to drop the act and let it all out.