About Horse

Baltimore City

Horse Lords is the quartet of composer/performers Andrew Bernstein (reeds, percussion), Max Eilbacher (microtonal bass, electronics), Owen Gardner (microtonal guitar), and Sam Haberman (drum set). Since forming in 2010 they have garnered praise for their relentless experimentation and exacting live performances. Over the span of three studio albums and four self released tapes, Horse Lords has mined the toolbox of (post)modern music, inserting arcane techniques—just intonation tuning,… more

Interventions

Released in 2016 by New York based Northern Spy Records, Interventions is the closest we've come to realizing our musical vision in record form. It contains all of the elements: a blend of chaotic but controlled performance; musical synthesis across far flung genres; a nearly compulsive drive to experiment; and a desire to do things in as DIY a manner as possible (in this case by doing most of the engineering, mixing, and production ourselves). 

Some praise for Interventions:

Philip Sherburne writes in his review for Pitchfork Media that, "[t]his is a band that believes that experimental music has the potential to be more than merely aesthetic, and every one of their choices—like taking apart their instruments and rebuilding them according to an alternate musical logic—speaks to a desire to upend the status quo." Writing in The Wire, Tristan Bath calls Interventions "an artistic breakthrough," while The New York Times' Ben Ratliff described the album as "shivering with energy." And Sasha Frere-jones writes in the Village Voice that "Horse Lords work loops against each other until you feel rhythms that you don't want to have to count....the joy rises, though, when the band lock gears and roll hard through their chutes and ladders." Interventions also appeared on several of 2016's year end best-of lists, including The Wire, Red Bull Music Academy, The Baltimore City Paper, WTMD, and The Observer.


  • Interventions Album Cover
    Interventions Album Cover
  • Horse Lords - Truthers (Official Video)
    The composition "Truthers" from Horse Lords' 2016 album "Interventions." Video by M.C. Schmidt.
  • Time Slip
  • Encounter II / Intervention II
  • Encounter I / Transfinite Flow (Video)
    Video by Andrew Bernstein.

Mixtape Series

Since 2012, we have self-released a series of tapes—dubbed "mixtapes"—which have allowed us to explore new ideas, play with compositional approaches, and ultimately discover new sounds. We treat each tape as both a sounding board for the development of new ideas and a self-contained work unto itself. From Mixtape Volume 1 onward, we have practiced the technique of audio collage by juxtaposing a series of seemingly unrelated musical components into one unbroken stream.

Our most recent, Mixtape Volume IV, featured colloborations with fellow Baltimore artists Bonnie Jones, Abdu Ali, and Will Schorre. 
  • Mixtape Volume IV Cover
    Mixtape Volume IV Cover
  • Remember the Future
    Side B of Mixtape Volume IV
  • Mixtape Volume III Cover
    Mixtape Volume III Cover
  • Mixtape Volume 3 (Excerpt)
  • Mixtape Volume 2 Cover
    Mixtape Volume 2 Cover
  • Mixtape Volume 2 (Excerpt)
  • Mixtape Volume 1 Cover
    Mixtape Volume 1 Cover
  • Mixtape Volume 1 (Excerpt)