As with so many great bands, Chicago three-piece Horsegirl were born out of an intense teenage friendship: “We were sending each other old videos, reading Kim Gordon’s book religiously and becoming obsessed with all this music,” guitarist and singer Penelope Lowenstein told the Chicago Reader. The logical next step for her, guitarist and singer Nora Cheng and drummer Gigi Reece, all of whom were still at high school (Lowenstein is still at school, but will join the other two at college in New York in the autumn), was to form Horsegirl in spring 2019.
Musically, their touchstones are primarily located in the late 80s and early 90s, Sonic Youth song structures heard through a shoegaze filter, with a lyrical opacity out of step with today’s more confessional style. Initially developing their ideas in isolation, they soon fell in with a group of like-minded teenage indie bands in their home city, with the Hallogallo fanzine as its focal point.
They quickly transcended their local scene: Matador signed them last year, and in March they played SXSW, where they attracted a different crowd to the one they were used to. “It was bizarre because it was a bunch of people who looked like my dad’s age or older,” Lowenstein told NME. “If older people feel our music is for them that’s great, but we don’t want them to feel too comfortable.” Truly, a band for all the family, then.
• Horsegirl’s debut LP, Versions of Modern Performance, is out now on Matador. They play UK dates later this month
