Globalization and It’s Intense! The Horse Flies’ Soundscape
Luke Z. Fenchel

Until The Ocean, The Horse Flies’ first studio release in more than fifteen years, is an immense and captivating work of sophisticated art: not only the finest album to come out of the Ithaca area in many years, it stands among the best American releases from any region in any genre this year. While most US bands seem content to rehash and revisit well-trodden territory, only venturing tentatively and hesitantly into the uncharted landscape of new sounds and ideas, The Horse Flies confidently chart a course that transcends both topographic and sonic classification. No mere academic exercise, experimentation is clearly an innate part of the group’s genetic makeup; Until The Ocean is the sound of a mature and comfortable group mapping the musical way for the rest of us. The album seamlessly incorporates the disparate sounds of the Appalachians, Bulgaria, West Africa and Kurdsistan — and that only partially touches upon the first three tracks. Pick it up to hear what globalization sounds like.

Refreshingly, the group’s itinerary seems to be to explore good sounds rather than what sounds good. Jeff Claus and the other members of The Horse Flies (Claus, Judy Hyman and Richie Stearns are the core band members) mistrust words that connote manufactured purposefulness: eclectic, clever, entertaining, conscious. Instead, the band sounds organic — steeped in a tradition that consists of a two decade-long musical partnership. Thus the complex layering on Until The Ocean never succumbs to pastiche. Rather, the textured intensity seems to spring from the band’s DNA. “There’s something imprinted on all of us; we all bring our interests to the table,” Claus explained.

The album’s brilliant lead track, “Build a House and Burn it Down,” sound like the Talking Heads fronted by Neil Young. Beginning with the polyrhythmic percussion of Taki Masuko — on the goblet drum (known as the darbuka in Turkish and djembe in West Africa) — the entire band quickly creates a swirling experience reminiscent of a trance or a rave. Bassist Jay Olsa and accordion player Rick Hansen ground the driving intensity, as fiddle player Hyman and banjo virtuoso Sterns lead the charge. Claus’s wail is as elongated and tonal as his lyrics are elliptical and obtuse.

At a time when the ascendant popularity of “roots” music is more dependent on whose roots are being appropriated than the quality of the appropriation, The Horse Flies’ sonic topography is compellingly inventive. Though Claus, who penned the lyrics to three of the eleven magnificent tracks, sings “nothing’s new… oh nothing’s new” on “14 Reasons,” The Horse Flies sound invigorated rather than stifled by folk heritage’s past. While most pop bands simply sound like other pop bands, The Horse Flies sound at times like Turkish prog rock or the Anatolian fusion of Cem Karaca, or the eerie sound of deep Appalachia.

Folk music traditions — be they from the Balkans or the British Isles — frequently sound more similar than different. Over coffee, Claus addressed the commonalities among traditional music from all over the world: “The chemistry of certain harmonic relationships communicates pathos, angst and depths of struggle which connects us to those other traditions.”

In part, this means The Horse Flies avoid major chord progressions. Claus joked that he tries to “avoid major thirds as much as possible.” The result sounds strikingly different than most pop music, and the result is a haunting tone or modal sound common to Ireland, Eastern Europe and the Near East. It is also quite rhythmic — an element that is propelled not only by Masuko’s percussion but also Hyman’s reiterative playing and Hansen’s accordion.

The focus on rhythm is partly due to The Horse Flies’ own history. Originating more than twenty years ago as the Tompkins County Horseflies, the group, which then included Claus, Hyman and Stearns, as well as the late John Haywood, performed old time fiddle music — a genre in which strings provide the rhythm. They were also unconventional: one of the six tracks on their 1985 Rounder Records debut was a reggae cover by The Ethiopians.

Most popular American bands eschew sonic experimentation, and are especially wary of transcending genres. Those that do dabble in the music of other cultures — Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel come to mind — receive massive amounts of attention for what often amounts to window-dressing or a gauche form of cultural tourism. On the other hand, revivalist groups archive music more than they perform it.

Imagine a U.S. sonic landscape that is no longer ordered by solidified genres and hermetic principles. This broad-based musical community would thrive on the give and take common to permeable boundaries and global synergy. Rather than retreat into the classifications and sub-classifications that characterize our contemporary aural universe (e.g. Southern Hip-Hop, Pop Country, Retro Garage Rock), performers and listeners would set their minds — and their ears — free to sample from what is good across a broad spectrum of sonic experiences. If you are looking for what such a band would sound like, you couldn’t do better than pick up The Horse Flies’ latest release. This is what globalization sounds like, and it’s all happening in our own backyard.