Horse Lords return with Comradely Objects, an alloy of erudite influences and approaches given frenetic gravity in pursuit of a united musical and political vision. The band’s fifth album doesn’t document a new utopia, so much as limn a thrilling portrait of revolution underway.

Comradely Objects adheres to the essential instrumental sound documented on the previous four albums and four mixtapes by the quartet of Andrew Bernstein (saxophone, percussion, electronics), Max Eilbacher (bass, electronics), Owen Gardner (guitar, electronics), and Sam Haberman (drums). But the album refocuses that sound, pulling the disparate strands of the band’s restless musical purview tightly around propulsive, rhythmic grids. Comradely Objects ripples, drones, chugs, and soars with a new abandon and steely control.

This transformation came, in part, due to circumstance. Sidelined from touring their early 2020 album The Common Task in a world turned upside down, Horse Lords promptly returned to their Baltimore practice space and began piecing together the music that became Comradely Objects (Bernstein, Eilbacher, and Gardner have since relocated to Germany). Removed from their tried and true method of refining new music on the road, the quartet invested less energy ensuring live playability and more rehearsing and recording. The deliberate writing and tracking process, a rarity since the band’s earliest days, led to a collection of pieces that signal a new peak of creativity and musical heft without devolving into studio sprawl or frippery.

Comradely Objects reflects familiar elements of Horse Lords’ established palette—the mantra-like repetition of minimalism and global traditional musics, complex counterpoint, the subtleties of microtonality, a breadth of timbres and textures drawn from all across the avant-garde—with some standout stylistic innovations. At different moments, the album veers closer to free jazz than anything else in the band’s catalog, channels spectral electroacoustic tones, and throbs with unexpected yet felicitous synth. While these new elements are evidence of additional studio time and care, Comradely Objects retains the dizzying obsessive rhythmic energy that galvanizes the best moments of the band.

It’s vital that the Horse Lords’ instrumentals speak for themselves, and for the quartet’s shared musical and sociopolitical vision. The title derives from Imagine No Possessions, art historian Christina Kaier’s 2008 book on Russian Constructivist design. Constructivists shunned the artistic egoism and precious artifacts of capitalist art in favor of utilitarian objects for the masses. “The comradely object should promote collective, egalitarian ideals,” the band notes. “They tended toward simple, unadorned forms that emphasized utility and foregrounded the material.

Comradely Objects works through what this means for the material of sound, for music, for the album, and for artistic production in the 21st century.”

Not only does Comradely Objects redefine the possibilities for Horse Lords’ shopworn format, it adds a new contour of confidence and finesse to the band’s reliefs mounted in both sticker-spattered indie hovels and the white-walled world of composition. It also solidifies their position among the foremost smugglers of radical musical and political ideas into contemporary music that happens to also, after a fashion, rock. Comradely Objects presents the most sublime document yet of the band’s ongoing interrogation of aesthetic and social form, purpose, and intent, alongside note, beat, and raw sound.

“unearthly dissonance: the auditory equivalent of awakening in the fog of a bad dream only to discover you’re still trapped in the nightmare” -The New York Times*“a titanic feat.., music that sounds simultaneously 300 years old and somewhere from the distant future.”* -The Guardian*“The duo traverses the art world and DIY noise scenes, and their music revels in the tension between elegance and disquiet, subverting the stereotypes associated with their chosen instruments.”* -Pitchfork (8.0 Album Review)*

“avant-pop that sounds unlike anything else”* -The FADER*”the ambient DIY duo making transcendental punk music”* -i-D*”a collaboration that stretches the possibilities”* -PAPER*”pure, shimmering, ethereal…doesn’t sound much like anything else”* -Document*“wildly sinister”* -Bandcamp*“subverting the baroque connotations of its arrangement in favor of something haunting and novel”* -Resident Advisor

LEYA – the duo of harpist Marilu Donovan and vocalist/violinist Adam Markiewicz – has long inhabited a beguiling world, blending Medieval-sounding origins with modern folk, classical, pop, and more. From deep roots in the NYC underground to international recognition as a crossover force, their work has found its way into spaces ranging from the club to fashion runways to Pornhub, and beyond.

The basis of LEYA is the unique tuning system of the harp, designed by Donovan for the project, which pairs with the distinctly wide, operatic singing range of Markiewicz, who further blends these vocals with processed violin tones. This sonic template is found on their 2018 debut The Fool and further developed on their 2020 breakthrough follow-up Flood Dream, which The New York Times called “the auditory equivalent of awakening in the fog of a bad dream only to discover you’re still trapped in the nightmare.” This sense of unease has become a distinctive tone for the project, a sort of collision of beauty and calamity that both soothes and disturbs its listeners.

LEYA’s distinctive sound was quickly noticed by other artists, starting with the release of their first single. In 2018 they were approached by rapper Brooke Candy to provide scoring and live acting for her adult film I Love You, which was produced by Pornhub for its Visionaries’ Directors Series and featured sound design by Sega Bodega. After an initial feature on The Fool, they followed in 2019 with the collaborative EP Angel Lust with Eartheater, with whom they have continued a close working relationship. In 2020 they released work with Actress, Liturgy, Drew McDowall (Coil/Psychic TV), and Christina Vantzou. In 2022 they released a fully collaborative mixtape comprised almost solely of features titled Eyeline. Other notable collaborators have included Ecco2K, Varg2TM, Julie Byrne, Okay Kaya, claire rousay, Deli Girls, James K, and many more.

LEYA’s latest release, I Forget Everything, marks their first return to the studio since 2022’s Eyeline and their first solo work since 2020’s Flood Dream. It comes on the heels of a relentless multi-year touring schedule, which began when COVID travel restrictions were lifted in 2021 and saw the duo performing steadily across the world through late 2023. Amidst this time, while working with many of the aforementioned collaborators, they also paired with fashion designers including Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein x i-D, Acne Studios, Elena Velez, HoodbyAir, video artists including Charles Atlas and Jeremiah Carter, choreographers including Loni Landon, and myriad others in varying modes of performance, scoring, and installations.

Since returning from tour, LEYA have sought to return to the basics of their raw sound but have also reimagined their language, harnessing production experiments percolating in their tangential work in recent years. I Forget Everything marks their first solo release containing elements of electronic production, sourcing from home-recorded to high-fidelity sounds, tracing the bounds of new experiments, while remaining rooted in harp, strings, and voice as the sole source of these sounds. The work regards a “haven scorned,” shifting in perspective between the larger world and one that is private, even imagined. A reaction to calamity, it imagines that abandonment is necessary. The work will mark only the beginning of a new path for LEYA amidst ever-expanding horizons.

Zoh Amba is a composer and instrumentalist from Tennessee residing in New York. Her music blends avant-garde, noise, and devotional hymns.  Before studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music, New England Conservatory, Amab spent most of her time writing and practicing saxophone in a remote forest near her home alone where she started to develop her distinct sound and approach. Today, her powerfully unique avant-garde music is full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, and repeated incantations. Zoh Amba released her first two records in 2022. Her debut record O, Sun which was produced by John Zorn and released on Tzadik. Her second record, Bhakti, features Micah Thomas, Tyshawn Sorey, and Matt Hollenberg. Over the years she has collaborated with a variety of high profile musicians such as Glen Hansard, Tyshawn Sorey, Vijay Iyer, Bill Orcutt, Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Jim White (Dirty Three), etc. Amba has  performed at well respected venues and festivals all over the world including Inhotim’s International Jazz Festival (Brazil), Bimhuis (NL), BOZAR (BE), Roulette (NY), OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival (China), ReWire (NL), BRDCST Festival (BE), Angel City Jazz Festival (LA), Jazz En Agosto (Portugal), Saalfelden Festival (AU), and Big Ears Festival (Knoxville). Zoh has taught workshops and masterclasses at institutions such as New School (NY), Oberlin (OH), and various European festivals. She will have a new jazz focused album or so released in 2025 followed by her songs which will be released in 2026.