Horse Lords’ Perpetual Motion Machine
The beloved avant-rock band on polyrhythm, just intonation, and conveying liberatory politics through sound.
In Theory is a semi-regular column in which Andy Cush takes a close look at the compositional underpinnings of songs new and old in search of a deeper understanding of how and why they move us.
Horse Lords were natural guests for the first installment of In Theory to feature an interview with an artist. First, because the Baltimore-bred instrumental avant-rock quartet, now based in Germany, is one of my favorite bands. Second, because their music involves a particular set of theoretical parameters. These parameters, as saxophonist Andrew Bernstein put it to me, are “integral to how we think about the music, but not integral to how the music is received.” You don’t have to understand them—don’t have to think about them at all—to have your mind bent and your body propelled into motion by the band’s fractal sense of groove. But understanding them might deepen your appreciation, or at least illuminate something about where the music is coming from.
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