***On the new album 7 Runs (In Arc Mental Styling), Max Eilbacher (Horse Lords) juggles a series of electronic tones, meticulously sculpted and spaced to create what the Berlin-based composer describes as “a structural mirage made from constant movement.” Following a conceptual compositional algorithm, Eilbacher’s effervescent, repetitive digitally constructed electronic tones appear to endlessly rise across two side-long climbs that bend and twist like a barber pole. This quality is extenuated by a series of diagrams included in the release that map the arcs, arches, and columns created by this sonic shadowplay. As tones and repeating patterns layer and imperceptibly shift, the music seems to grow more solid and spectral all at once. Eilbacher may explain the “movement” of his illusory structures and even show his work, yet we are still left in awe at the seamless magic generated. A debut release on OMA, a new label co-founded by Eilbacher and his bandmates in Horse Lords, 7 Runs makes for a bemusing and breathtaking liftoff.
LP $22.00
04/18/2025
***Flying between virtuosic formalism and freewheeling openness, Andrew Bernstein’s (Horse Lords) new album Shadows and Windy Places is a gripping picture of the Germany-based saxophonist right now. Capturing recordings across the last five years and disparate sources—some are previous album sessions, others peak into Bernstein’s daily practice—they all fall perfectly into place to form an album as rich as a self-portrait and as spontaneous as a snapshot. “I often feel the pull to formalize my music, to have a reason for every decision, an internal logic that can be explained,” Bernstein says of the album. “This is countered by my lived experience, of music and otherwise, in a chaotic, improvisatory, and complex world. This music attempts to reconcile these impulses.” That tension between logical forms and chaotic, improvised flights only becomes more rewarding and joyful as Shadows and Windy Places unfolds through the hypnotic “A Shadow, Blooming” with subliminal flashes of gamelan and Ethiopian jazz, the silvery, pulsing “Of Infinite Space” and the playful, bubbling “Counting Sines.” They all revolve around the gripping centerpiece “In Blue”, an explosive performance where Bernstein doesn’t reconcile his impulses so much as fuse them entirely with his saxophone forming a fiery crucible. As both an end point for years of material and an opening statement to OMA, a new label co-founded by Bernstein and his bandmates in Horse Lords, Shadows and Windy Places is a defining work for the virtuoso saxophonist.
LP $22.00
04/11/2025