How a studio accident helped shape Horsegirl‘s minimalist new sound

Horsegirl singer-guitarist Penelope Lowenstein recalls the session that sparked a more pared-back sound on the Chicago trio’s new album, Phonetics On and On.

A lot of the songs on the new album were already written, but we were trying to figure out how to flesh them out as a recording. Julie was originally written on an acoustic guitar, and so when we arranged it, it was centred around that guitar part, with my bandmates writing a bassline and synth part to complement it.

So we got to the studio to record it, and the engineer was messing around with the faders after doing a first take and turned down my guitar part completely. And then we heard this haunting, super-minimal version of the song completely by accident. Our jaws just dropped. We were like, “What the heck is this? This sounds so strange, we took out the actual melody.” It became a kind of turning point, because we realised those moments of vulnerability, or removing something you thought was important, could be really exciting, and it pushed us to explore minimalism.

The vocal take was recorded with me singing with a full band, and so I had this confidence that this is a louder song. Then you remove the guitar and I sound a bit crazy – like a girl singing at full force, but it’s really lonely or something. It showed us what happens when you take a pop love song, then strip it back so the feeling floats to the fore in this cool way.

Cate [Le Bon], who produced the record, was like, “This is so cool, it has the potential to be the cornerstone of the record.” That gave us a boost when maybe we would have gotten nervous and shied away from a weirder choice. She kind of coached us into this more minimal space, which is also why we picked her.

When we were in high school, the most exciting thing was like, “How much noise can we make?” But then we realised the most natural thing for a trio setup is stripping it back. And we already loved those bands [Young Marble Giants, The Raincoats and The Feelies]. We thought maybe it was a little more sophisticated – there’s a confidence in occupying less space. Also, we’re not teenagers any more.