Listen to “Ballroom Dance Scene” by Horsegirl
Despite the name, there’s nothing pastoral about Horsegirl, the Chicago rock band composed of Penelope Lowenstein, Gigi Reece, and Nora Cheng. Since forming in 2019, the trio—who are currently in their final years of high school—have been making intriguing noise songs, some of which are gathered on the recent, delightfully titled collection Ballroom Dance Scene et cetera (best of Horsegirl). On the titular song, guitarists Lowenstein and Cheng’s sleep-smeared murmurs stumble into each other atop Reece’s steady drum work. The words and phrases that float to the surface sound like entries in a haunted dream journal: There’s a poor soul with “flies inside the pockets of his jeans,” a boy with “seven pens to differentiate between his sins,” and a girl who “licks her bruise like it’s a lollipop.” The result, which lands somewhere between shoegaze, slowcore, and post-rock, manages to be both melodic and stoned as it rises to a lush, swirling conclusion.