The Loft studio in Chicago had its heat turned off during the recording of "Phonetics On and On." The decision was practical: heating systems create interference with microphones. Horsegirl, the trio of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece, worked in that cold for two weeks in 2024 to make an album that sounds like they knew exactly how much warmth they wanted to remove.
Released on February 14, 2025, on Matador Records, "Phonetics On and On" is the band's second album and the one that settles the question of what kind of band Horsegirl intends to be. The debut, "Versions of Modern Performance" (2022), established them as heirs to a specific tradition of Chicago and New York guitar rock. This record removes the reverb, cuts the distortion, and asks whether the songs still hold. They do.
Cate Le Bon and the Problem of Space
Horsegirl brought in Welsh musician and producer Cate Le Bon to make this record, which is a choice with a track record behind it. Le Bon has produced albums for Deerhunter, Kurt Vile, Wilco, and Devendra Banhart. Her production work consistently prioritizes space over density. When a note stops in a Le Bon production, you hear where it went.
For "Phonetics On and On," this approach meant stripping back the layered guitars and reverb that characterized Horsegirl's debut. What Le Bon left in place is the rhythm section, the dry guitar tones, and the conversation between Cheng and Lowenstein as guitarists. Neither of them solos on this record. The melodic information comes from the exchange between the two guitars, not from any single one taking the lead. Le Bon's production makes this dialogue audible in a way the debut did not prioritize.
Reece's drumming lands differently without the ambient wash to absorb it. On several tracks, particularly "Frontrunner" and "Information Content," the drum sound is close and dry in a way that foregrounds rhythm over texture. This is not a minor adjustment. It changes what the album is fundamentally about.
The "2468" Video
The lead single for the album, "2468," arrived in November 2024 alongside a music video directed by Eliza Callahan and choreographed by Alexa West. Callahan is a New York based writer and filmmaker. West is a choreographer and dance artist whose work has been presented at Performa and SculptureCenter in New York.
The video translates the song's structural premise directly. "2468" counts, and it counts in both directions. The choreography West developed for the video does the same thing: sequences that accumulate and then reverse. Callahan's direction holds on the movement and lets the counting do its work.
What makes this an effective video rather than a routine one is that neither Callahan nor West tried to make it warmer than the song. The deadpan quality that runs through Horsegirl's music extends into the visual register without being softened for the format.
Chicago After Leaving It
The band had moved from Chicago to New York by the time they returned to record in their home city. Recording at The Loft, in the cold, after having left the place where they grew up as a band, puts a particular kind of distance into the album.
Chicago's music scene did not produce Horsegirl's specific combination of influences: the British post punk of Wire and the Raincoats, the American indie rock that descended from it through labels like Matador, the guitar exchange that results from two players who prioritize conversation over virtuosity. The band found those references in the city anyway and built something out of them. "Phonetics On and On" is the record they made once they had left.
Signing to Matador meant something for a band with this sound. Matador built its catalog on music that sounds like this: dry, referential, structurally unusual without being experimental for its own sake. Horsegirl does not treat the lineage reverently, but they are aware of it.
What the Runtime Says
Eleven tracks and a runtime that ends at a specific point. Contemporary indie rock tends toward the forty five minute record, toward the kind of expansion that signals ambition by accumulating material. "Phonetics On and On" makes its case in less time than that and stops.
The band has kept their output focused since forming: two albums, a touring practice built around supporting the releases rather than maintaining visibility between them. The compressed output matches the compressed production approach of this album. Both decisions point toward the same instinct about what the music needs.
Horsegirl's 2025 tour included European dates. The audience for guitar based indie that is conscious of its British and European references remains large in the markets where those references originated. The band's reception on those dates confirmed that the stripped down approach read clearly abroad as well as at home.
The Second Album Question
Second albums after praised debuts can either consolidate or pivot. Horsegirl did neither in the usual sense. They did not make a version of "Versions of Modern Performance" with bigger production and more songs. They also did not break entirely from the first record's logic. What they did was change the production philosophy so completely that the same musicians, the same song structures, and the same reference points produce a different kind of listening experience.
That is harder to do than either of the alternatives. It requires knowing what the first record was about precisely enough to know what to remove. Le Bon's involvement gave Horsegirl someone with that kind of diagnostic hearing. The album that resulted is the same band asking what they sound like without the weather.
