The next version of Horsegirl

“My room gets really bright so it’s also practical,” Cheng laughs. There’s some confusion over what time it is where they all are, and we conclude that time must move differently in the fort. Indeed, the band always seem to be cosying up in liminal spaces – bandmates Penelope Lowenstein (guitar/vocals) and Gigi Reece (drums) bundled up to join Cheng in Wilco’s studio, The Loft, sans heating, to record their latest album.

“My brother always says that winter in Chicago is so extreme that it feels like travelling from airlock to airlock – almost like you’re in outer space,” Cheng recalls. “The Loft became like a spaceship that we’d report to every day and eat family-style lunch together.”

Reece insists that they still managed to make their headquarters quite homey: “We had a little blanket on the couch, and one of the first things we were told about the space was that we’d need to wear layers,” they reflect. “It was fun in that way – we’d get to see each other’s outfits each day, like seeing what was the craziest shit we could layer. There’d be times I was wearing too many [layers] and I’d give one to Nora. At one point Cate even gave me a layer” – they flash a toothy grin – “that was really special.”

Reece is referring to Cate Le Bon, who they still can’t believe hunkered down alongside the band in the cold. “She was always somebody that we thought it would be so insanely cool to work with – even when we were teenagers,” Reece beams. Le Bon produced the album but also offered expertise as a musician, and most importantly as a fellow woman in music.

Cheng struggles to express how it felt creating alongside such a musical giant: “The things she’d say, they came from a perspective of – she’s just brilliant! I don’t know….” But Reece is there to catch her thought: “I think you’re trying to say that as a musician she was able to talk to us not just about how to make a song, but about the scariness of releasing something, making a second record, and being on a label... she was able to relate to us, and it made sense to let her into our dynamic.”

There’s a sharp telekinesis between the trio, and they also spend much of the Zoom interview communicating via emoji reacts. Lowenstein is a huge fan of the clapping hands and throws them out sincerely to anything her bandmates have to say.

Horsegirl’s second album, Phonetics On and On, is one that could only be imagined by close friends, and one that could only spark from such a unique space (especially while wearing a random assortment of clothes kept at your parents’ house after moving to college, and while the Indie Princess of Wales crouches in the corner and tells you to play fewer notes).

This time around the band approached recording more experimentally, throwing wacky sounds and instruments at the wall until something stuck. And a lot did: “We’d think, ‘Nora, what would happen if you played violin? We know you don’t know how to, but…’” Reece laughs. “Then we do it and it would sound incredible, and then that gets us thinking about making the guitar simpler to make space for the violin, and so on. There was just this excitement – this feeling that anything could happen.”

As this creative curiosity galloped on and on (wink, wink), Horsegirl turned their attention to the ‘phonetics’ half of the record. “As a word, we just really loved it,” says Cheng. “We were trying to embrace something rudimentary, and phonetics are like the building blocks of learning language.”

Unsurprisingly, Cheng and Lowenstein are English majors; they’re thrilled to hear I also have an English degree and are grateful for the go-ahead to keep gushing about their love of linguistics. The album is full of lovely non-lexical vocables (“do-do-doos” etc.) and other vocal trills, and Cheng explains that each one was thoughtful and deliberate: “They’re not made into words yet – they’re just the blocks.”

Piecing these blocks together just right makes for delightfully dancey, primitive indie pop, “2468” being a particular highlight. The track stomps back to basics, with Cheng’s elementary violin plucks overlapping with some easy counting. “I’m glad someone finds it linguistic,” Lowenstein laughs. “Our la la las are very linguistic!” When there are lyrics, they are big and profound. Tracks such as “Well I Know You’re Shy” and “Information Content” transform their phonetics into meaningful tales, the latter lamenting, “I’ve come to comfort shutting doors.”

The album untangles the long and confusing trials of young adulthood; opener “Where’d You Go?” is an immediate snapshot of the trio growing up and moving on. It’s a simple but necessary conversation: Lowenstein asks, “Where’d you go?” and Cheng responds, “far, far, far away.”

“Our first record was us getting through high school; Phonetics On and On represents a lot of how we’ve got from 18 to 22,” Reece explains. Cheng nods along: “People have said that this new record sounds like we went away to this new unfamiliar place. It has new sounds, but also quite literally you can hear us figuring out how to live on our own in a new place.”

“But having that experience and then coming back to record in Chicago was very important,” she continues. “We didn’t want it to be that we took off to go to a new city and then that became our New York record.” Ultimately, everything about Horsegirl continues to grow from the same place: three best friends who first bonded at a gig in their hometown when they were teens. “My mom saw Gigi walking into the warehouse and said something like, ‘Cool jacket! Look at your new friend!’” Lowenstein laughs. “And I said we are not friends yet; I don’t know who that is!”

They shout out their ‘Horseparents’ for this moment of ice-breaking – “They love that title!” Reece chuckles. “At least my dad does.” With their reach growing, I wonder if they’ve given any thought to what to call their Horsefans. “Well, the DJ horsegiirL calls her fans ‘Farmies,’” Reece posits. “So maybe not that one, but all respect to her Farmies.”

I also wonder whether they’ve been tempted to dress up as horses, like horsegiirL does. “I think that niche has been filled already, and she does it better than anybody could,” Reece says. “If we were to do it, it would be” – Cheng starts before Lowenstein jumps in – “pathetic!” They laugh and decide that if they were to take Horsegirl this literally, they’d have to squeeze into a pantomime horse. “There’d be one of us in the front and one in the back, and one of us just flat in the middle,” Reece thinks. Lowenstein offers to be the spine, and Cheng half-jokes that she indeed is the spine of the band.

Good things often come in threes, like Horsegirl’s musical heroes – Sleater Kinney and Yo La Tengo. They also seem to fit perfectly into the standard three-person-friendship-group trope – like the one found on Seinfeld. “We always talk about this!” laughs Cheng. “I’m George, unfortunately, and Gigi is Elaine.” “And I’m Seinfeld – and Kramer actually,” Lowenstein adds. We argue that maybe Cate Le Bon is Kramer now after joining their recording sessions: “Yeah,” Reece beams, “her just bursting through the door.”

Rounding up, the trio tell me about their forthcoming EU/UK tour. They’re hoping it goes better than the last one, during which Cheng was trapped with COVID in a Bristol hotel overlooking a shopping centre. “It was our first tour that was more than just four shows,” Reece remembers. “We got thrown into it; it was crazy. Our first 12 days there we didn’t have a single break – it was like show, show, show, session – and we were also teenagers!” This time around they’re planning on getting enough rest, and also making sure there’s enough time to have a shower.

Maybe they’ll also don a pantomime horse, but we’ll see.