If you like highly percussive, thoughtful yet lively musicians who are super serious in their commitment to out-sound (or think you might like such a thing), then you might enjoy this Baltimore-based group Horse Lords playing at Trinosophes in Eastern Market this Sunday, May 8.
It might seem at first like you have to wear thick glasses and know who Adorno is (I mean, really know), but it's actually total awesome loud party music. That's partly because this microtonal ensemble brings the sort of intensity to just intonation that Jonathan Kane brings to his adrenalized adaptation of minimalist blues. Horse Lords almost look like a 1990s Louisville band in these videos of them playing live posted below.
Pitchfork compares them to Don Cab, which is ridiculous. But whatever; they like Horse Lords and that's what matters. I mean, we all hear different things based on what we've listened to before. It'd make just as much sense to say "super electric gamelan." The dual percussionists are clearly the drive behind the act, especially because they don't always play percussion.
Metro Times music editor Mike McGonigal has written about music since 1984, when he started the fanzine Chemical Imbalance at age sixteen with money saved from mowing lawns in Florida. He's since written for Spin, Pitchfork, the Village VOICE and Artforum. He's been a museum guard, a financial reporter, a bicycle...