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There are some album conventions we as listeners take for granted—the three-minute song, the tonal harmony, the bass-drum rhythm section, the track-to-track continuity. But when a band comes along and turns these rituals on their heads, it scratches a previously unnamed runaway itch.
That is just the sensation one gets from listening to a Lily and Horn Horse project. In bouts of blissful melody, jazz harmonies, and colliding electronic dance waves, Lily Konigsberg and Matt Norman challenge our understanding of songwriting.
Matt and Lily met while living in the Hudson Valley, where they recorded their self-titled debut in 2017 and their second release, Next To Me, later that year. The duo moved to Brooklyn before the release of their most recent EP, Republicans for Bernie, in May. Their previous two releases each hovered around 20 songs, but Republicans for Bernie is a quick 6-track punch. Lyrical tidbits suck you in and leave in a flash, disappearing into spaced-out contrapuntal MIDI jams and oscillating vocal harmonies. Lily and Horn Horse are in conversation.
I spoke to Matt and Lily over Skype in the beginning of June amid the surging pandemic and the early stages of widespread civil rights protests. We discussed their new EP, their pre-COVID tour with of Montreal, and the spaces where they exist and experiment, from the home to the studio to the stage.
