Every so often, music must confront you purely with the image of a turquoise cassette tape on a wooden table and your imagination must run wild. For example, there’s a feasible alternative timeline out there where the healing power of horses are some hotly-tipped group from the U.S finally arriving in the UK on the back of serious stateside buzz, fully formed, next in line for fans of horsegirl, bar Italia, C Turtle to savour.
Though, by the time we reach the thick southern accents on the searing slow-burn of ‘summer indoors’, and reality has to lead back to cage, we have probably learned that the healing power of horses are a duo from Cambridgeshire, who at the time of writing leave scarce biographical trace – save these 5 songs, collected in an EP named tape NS005, named simply by the catalogue number of the cassette label, Glasgow’s No Soap, that released it. The only other information provided is that they “play heavenly games in the fenlands and shake light into damp rooms, and that they “rely mostly on improvisation, faith, and noise”, which is to say, not a lot of extra information.
What all of this really means is that this mysterious EP from the equally mysterious the healing power of horses is absorbing, fragile and just a little bit special. A definitive gem of smothering shoegaze and freaked-up lo-fi excursions, at once unafraid to flip a feedback switch and descend into caterwauling weirdo squalls, but confident enough in their songwriting to still wheel out smooth, cohesive rock experiences. At one extreme, ‘tear me all over town’ whispers and enchants with an almost Phoebe Bridgers’ esque indie-pop sensibility. And on the other, there’s the harsh noise climax of ‘4 leaf clover’, and no-holds barred fuckery that caps off ‘summer indoors’ which does all it can to eviscerate the very eardrums it once treated so tenderly.
One other vital piece of information here is that the EP was recorded during a “biblical” heatwave: “Listening back”, they band , “it reminds us of the choking heat, the scorched grass in our tiny garden, the broken mirror and the flu the two of us had at the time. Which are all in fact very happy memories. We remain untouched and undefeated by the men who live in the walls.”
And you can definitely hear the heaviness of the heat weighing in here, but there’s energy and movement there too bursting in like a garden hose drenching the parched soil. Wait until some sticky shirtless night at the height of summer to dig into this one, or better, check it now .
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Issue Fifty-Five features Model/Actriz, YHWH Nailgun, The Orchestra (For Now), Westside Cowboy, Car Seat Headrest, Real Farmer, School Fair, Elias Rønnenfelt, feeble little horse, Kissing On Camera, Pooneh Ghana and Rhi Dancey.
Read the digital edition below.