Horse Lords + Support TBC

Horse Lords were founded in Baltimore in 2010; they evolved from the experimental collective Teeth Mountain and began as a trio with drummer Sam Haberman, guitarist Owen Gardner, and bassist Max Eilbacher, soon adding alto saxophonist Andrew Bernstein to the core ensemble. Though Horse Lords grew out of the fertile Baltimore noise and leftfield rock scene, a storied environment for artists and weirdos that has nurtured many an influential outsider band (Lungfish, Matmos), their approach is more omnivorous than the stippled rhythms of instrumental electric rock would indicate. Across sixteen years of frequent touring, Horse Lords have released ten studio, live, and collaboration albums in addition to a split EP with fellow Baltimoreans Lower Dens, a handful of singles and compilation tracks. For RVNG’s FRKWYS series, the band collaborated with Berlin-based composer Arnold Dreyblatt, a onetime student of La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros whose just intonation chamber music was a crucial part of the post-Fluxus Downtown New York City environment. With the relocation of three of the four members to Germany beginning in 2021, the potential for more further creative exploration, and performance opportunities including the Moers Festival (with an 11-piece lineup, interpreting Julius Eastman’s music as well as their own), the interdisciplinary phases of the band’s music was poised for fascinating new directions. The band observes “We are always trying to balance working within the limitations of the quartet and pushing beyond them.
Originally trained as a photographer, Spencer Clark started making music almost twenty years ago. Right from the beginning, he has been part of many significant moments in 21st century “fringe” music. As The Skaters, he and James Ferraro were part of the US noise scene in the early/mid-noughties. The Skaters belonged to the Californian branch of that scene: they recorded almost twenty albums in just one year, although they released them in the span of four years (2004-2008) while touring – to then remain silent ever since. Their final release, Physicalities Of The Sensibilities Of Ingrediential Stairways, is probably the most complete evidence of that period. The parting of the ways led Spencer to experiment with music under a list of monickers such as Black Joker, Vodka Soap, and Monopoly Child, that in 2009 David Keenan accounted within hypnagogic pop, i.e., “pop music refracted through the memory of a memory.” In his article for The Wire, Keenan had referred to a sort of continuity with exotica, in its more psychedelic ramifications, as a defining feature of hypnagogic pop; this continuity has become somewhat a trademark in Spencer Clark’s later production. In fact, he become one of the stars of the current lush neo-psychedelia/exotica constellation, together with labels such as Discrepant, his own Pacific City Sound Visions, Aguirre, Edições Cn, Artetetra, and many more. Quite consistently, Spencer Clark has also been acknowledged as one of the starters of the New Age revival that took place all along the past decade. Yet, these elements are just part of what can be retrieved throughout his immense discography: his wide stylistic variety has its match with an across-the-board interest in different cultural areas. He frequently blows up the walls separating so-called high and low culture – exploring the ways they can be connected together: just to name a recent examples, in his two albums with Italian sound artist Francesco Cavaliere under the Etrusca 3D monicker, they blended together the Etruscan civilisation and ancient 3D movies. Under this respect, one of his most significant project is Fourth World Magazine, whose third installment, Neoplatonic Aquatic Symposiums, was released in 2023.
Swarm Grammar, a Bristol DIY weirdo-scene featuring members of Sunglasz Vendor, Grandchild, im dead, Wendy Miasma and Group Sounds, play a wonky, semi-improvised non-euclidian dance music that they call 'Dialectical Minimalism'. Alternately described as 'Phil Minton starring in STOMP' and 'the Shaggs imitating Can' they are sure to delight and confound in equal measure.