Reviews
A band that's earned a buzz ... The Horse Flies churn out swirling, addictive songs, blending tradition with invention. |
The film is an evocative, painstaking period piece enhanced stunningly by a spare, pulsating score by the Horse Flies. [from a review of the feature film, "Where the Rivers Flow North," starring Rip Torn, Michael J. Fox, Tantoo Cardinal, and Treat Williams, for which the Horse Flies did the music] |
Much like Talking Heads in its early days, the Horse Flies combine musical and lyrical quirkiness with beguiling wit and intelligence on their second album, "Gravity Dance." Chief lyricist Jeff Claus may sing "I've tried psychotherapy, TV and beer / But sometimes I still feel like Van Gogh's left ear" one moment, but a few songs later he's tackling more serious concerns. Musically, "Gravity Dance" is a melange of rock, folk, and minimalism, all held together by Judy Hyman's haunting violin and a glove tight rhythm section. This is music that challenges the brain without sacrificing the groove. |
The Horse Flies suffer an attack of the twentieth-century blues on their arresting sophomore album. ..."Gravity Dance" works because of the prickly emotions contained in the material. ...The Flies are very good players, too, dedicated to a punchy, coherent band groove. Hyman, on violin, teams with keyboardist Peter Dodge to create woozy roller-coaster effects; Stearns and Claus play their guitars like percussionists, jabbing rather than massaging the melodies. ... Even when aiming for laughs, The Horse Flies rub your nose in somebody else's weirdness -- and they do it great. Are we having fun yet? |
It's early in the year, but it's hard to imagine a show surpassing the diverse, remarkable one The Horse Flies gave at Peabody's Down Under in the Flats Sunday night in their Cleveland debut. ... music of astonishing centrifugal force ... breathtakingly complex rhythms ... unexpectedly rich textures ... stunningly modern ... gravity and grace ... Their ancient, yet modern sound and their easy, seemingly limitless energy make The Horse Flies special. |
On their excellent "Gravity Dance" album, the Horse Flies have crafted a rubbery art-rock sound that suggests Civil War music as interpreted by Talking Heads, especially in songs sung by guitarist Jeff Claus. Live, the eccentric folk-rock group rocks even harder. The Horse Flies appeal to both the head and the feet. |
... the textures are a blend of the ancient and the ultra modern. Realism coexists with surrealism, and synthetics and acoustics are interwoven. A record of dark brilliance. |
... demented, post-modern mountain music ... |
Lately, I've started to think that working fusions bring a sense of place to the information landscape -- a fictitious place, outside geography, but one that's convincingly imagined. One way to get there is to head for music borderlines, discovering where far-flung styles overlap as pure sheer sound. ...The Horse Flies, a band from Ithaca, NY, decided that old-time string band music, with its one-chord, modal drones and busy fiddling, has something in common with the intricate minimal compositions, themselves African, Asian, American fusions, of Steve Reich -- an unlikely combination that pays off ...The Horse Flies have figured out how to hold a hoedown in a physics lab. |
Compared with Camper Van Beethoven's instrumentals, there have been richer, more far-reaching folk-rock-ethnic fusions by old bands (Kaleidoscope) and current ones (the Horse Flies). |
Could turn out to be the cult band of the year. |
Upstate New York has sired two of the most worthy acts of the recent past in Jamestown's 10,000 Maniacs and Ithaca's Horse Flies. Addressing the state of the modern world from close proximity but widely diverging points of view--the Maniacs with their flint-eyed propriety, and the Flies with apocalyptic imagery balanced by a sly wink--the two acts wind up roiling the same stagnant waters: both flout pop's narrowing margins to create challenging music, but without losing sight of what has historically made pop such an enduring art form. In the case of the Horse Flies this is the product of unfettered imagination. It would be fair to say that this sextet has widened pop's parameters with its two wild and wonderful recordings, 1987's "Human Fly" and this year's "Gravity Dance." |
Brilliantly peculiar ... new music with gnarled and twisted roots. |
The Horse Flies live up to the expectations of their song titles, playing off-kilter pop-tunes. Like an East Coast Camper Van Beethoven, they combine an art-rock intellect with compelling lyrics and bewitching musicianship for a sound that is both surreal and sublime. |
An entrancing act ... a high tech hybrid with strange and amazing capacities ... part Camper Van Beethoven, part Oingo Boingo and entirely as surreal as a David Lynch movie. |
The Horse Flies win this season's award for "Best Set by a Band We've Never Heard Of." |
The band takes its instrumentation from old-time mountain string bands, but adds synthesizers, third world percussion and a Lou Reed attitude. These unlikely ingredients coalesce into a whole that not only has a refreshing lack of precedent but also makes a strong musical/emotional statement. |
... an excellent second outing from Ithaca's Horse Flies, who write eclectic, danceable, intelligent, quirky, folk-oriented pop with a very black sense of humor and intriguing instruments. A couple of haunting, beautiful ballads balance out the pace of the album ... a dark yet upbeat album. |
If you like Camper Van Beethoven, Violent Femmes, David Lindley, Jane Siberry, Cowboy Junkies and other new wave folkniks, you're primed for the Horse Flies. Influenced by everything from Balinese dance music to modern minimalists like Steve Reich and Philip Glass, the Horse Flies call their spooky sound "neoprimitive bug music." I call it weird, wicked, wild and wonderful. |
If you favor inventive musicians with a dark sense of humor, this is your band. Rarely can a band write songs about prostitution ("Sally Ann") and medical waste ("Needles on the Beach") without making you retch over the earnest correctness of it all. The Horse Flies not only do that but have made a record that you'll keep coming back to, finding new ways to be astonished. |
Thursday night at the China Club, the Horse Flies proved they not only are an engrossing live band, but also one with considerable lasting potential. In a showcase designed as an introduction to the band for LA audiences and a preview of new material from their upcoming "Gravity Dance" album, the Horse Flies ripped through both old and new songs with assurance and style. ... Less bucolic and musically more ambitious than 10,000 Maniacs, upstate NY's other folk inflected band, the Horse Flies are a band worth following. "Gravity Dance" is due out in a month or two, and then perhaps they will reach the audience they deserve. |
The title track opens side one with a menacing robotic tribute to The Cramps that ends up sounding like Michael Nyman reworking the theme tune to the Beverly Hillbillies. On "I Live Where It's Gray" the headless ghost of Neil Young croons about swim suits being incinerated and the colour of priests' legs. This is a very fine, very odd debut. File under maverick. |
The new wave of interest in traditional styles has brought some unexpected hybrids from the punk folk of the Pogues to the New Age folk of Enya, but last weekend at the Pied Bull in Islington could be found the quirkiest folk fusion artists of all, the Horse Flies. ... They gave a bizarre, entertaining performance. ... On "Human Fly" they mixed the rattling repetition of Claus' frantic strummed rhythm work with Judy Hyman's rousing fiddle work, blending folk styles with the repetition of modern systems music. On their best and most startling song, "I Live Where It's Gray," they mixed Claus' deadpan vocals with furious backing, to chilling effect. Any band that can switch from a song like this to the lyrical "Rub Alcohol Blues" and play for so long with such enthusiasm deserves more than a cult following. |
They've moved not into the hey-nonny nowhere of punk folk, but a whole new terrain whose borders might meet with, say, Talking Heads. "Human Fly," one of their best known songs is a cover of that one by the Cramps, but reworked beyond belief. It's a bustling web of Philip Glass rhythms and keening fiddle, with Stearns' high poignant vocal trapped in its centre, as startling and as useful a reinventing as The Residents doing "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." The Flies alternate uncomplicated body music with songs like the hit-potential cerebral funk of "I Live Where It's Gray." There's one about throwing acid on dogs, this delivered in Claus' startled, Byrne-ish yelp; and a goose bump version of the nursery rhyme, "Hush Little Baby," coming on like a child molester trying to quiet his prey. River's Edge territory, the darkness at the edge of town, so normal and so weird. ... a world without the Horse Flies' wholly unique music would be a much, much poorer place. |
"Gravity Dance" finds The Horse Flies moving in increasingly strange directions, though their traditional sound is still evident on songs like "Sally Ann," which has a powerful and beautiful violin part by Judy Hyman who excels throughout the record. This use of folk roots also lays a framework for tunes like "Roadkill"-- a bizarre, sarcastic song about eating animals killed by cars--though the synthesizers, combined with fairly crazed, partially electronic percussion, turn it into something far from tradition ... The album mixes innumerable influences into a unique, cohesive sound, alternately jarring and pretty. Like their name, The Horse Flies can be disturbing. But they're superb, knowledgeable musicians--at their best, challenging and invigorating. |
The Horse Flies are an art rock outfit in the tradition of Talking Heads--they combine wild, infectious rhythms with lyrics you can actually listen to. "Gravity Dance" is the Flies' second album, a quirky collection of the sublime-- as in "Sally Ann", a song about prostitution and the oppression of women-- and the ridiculous-- as in "Roadkill", a sort of 90's sequel to Loudon Wainwright's "Dead Skunk." Just the thing for rockthinkers who love to dance. |
Once the Horse Flies start buzzing around your brain, it's no small matter to swat them away. The Ithaca, NY-based sextet makes a hypnotic hum that gets inside your head. On their second album "Gravity Dance" the Horse Flies splice their folk roots to an art-rock sensibility and oddball lyrics to make a grand, quirkily appealing leap from acoustic to electric eccentricity. ..."Gravity Dance" offers 12 compelling songs-- something like Neil Young jamming with minimalist master Philip Glass and reggae legend Bob Marley. |
The Horse Flies, an electro-acoustic sextet, delivered quirky gems buffed with a cheeky agit-pop wit. With tough drum rhythms balancing the hustle of a fiddle, the 'flies have that rare ability to sound traditional and modern at once. |
The best new American band I've heard in a long time. ... They don't sound like anyone I've heard and comparisons don't do them justice (sort of like Talking Heads but different). Maybe that's why their sincerity shines through. |
At the onset of a decade that promises much strangeness, Horse Flies are one of the stranger outfits to hit the road. ... I'm happy to report that the live version of this sextet is very muscular. The Horse Flies chip from nearly every popular music form, starting with a clipped, hyper kinetic hoedown soundtrack and scurrying through various corners of world music. Onstage they remind of no one so much as the Talking Heads circa "Stop Making Sense." |
Bewitching and beguiling ... a band for our trying times. |
The Horse Flies use unconventional instruments and hybrids to make some of the most original music around. What's more, their songs are recipes of rhythmic and melodic prowess. |
A strange, hypnotic blend ... even after you listen to this glorious music, you may not be able to describe it to your friends. It's unique stuff and that's all too rare in these days of homogenized musical commodities. |
I don't know what you call this stuff, but the Horse Flies shred. They play tighter than Roseanne Barr in Billy Barter's wetsuit and write some mindsnapping songs. Great Stuff. |
The Horse Flies returned to the site of their exceptional Cleveland debut Tuesday night swarming Peabody's Down Under with their wonderfully unsettling, profoundly disciplined music. ... The Flies may be the only band since Talking Heads to put multiple twists on rock 'n' roll. ... Their sound is distinguished by propulsive rhythms launched by Stearns and Claus, embellished by Hyman and stirred by the rhythm section. ... Part of the appeal of this oddly Gothic band is its communal nature. They dedicate themselves to sonic weave as they spin such bitter political commentaries as "Roadkill," a pungent tune about the bottom of the food chain and "Mink Don't Trickle Down," a witty trashing of Reaganomics. There are also ravishing slower tunes like the rueful "Sally Ann." ... they promised to return. It won't be too soon. |
Though their instruments often include violin and accordion, the Horse Flies are a very progressive band. "Gravity Dance" deserves to be heard by all those whose taste rises above the current state of sonic affairs. |
One of the funniest pieces of music I've heard in a long time is their song, "Who Throwed Lye on My Dog?" ... Richie Stearns' eerie vocals, in the echo-chambered, David Byrne style, haunt the Flies' version of "Hush Little Baby." ... I like the Horse Flies a lot. Sometimes they sound like the Rolling Stones in 1968, when they were just discovering folk and country blues. Other times, they're like punk musicians who happen to know how to play their instruments. What a combination. ... Highly recommended to anyone with contemporary taste and a warped sense of humor. |
Take six disaffected middle Americans with a sense of their national non-history and disgust with their world identity, give them a series of instruments and lock them in a garage with a catalogue of world music tapes and what do you get? You get "Human Fly," an album that hypnotizes, disturbs and drags up all the images of David Lynch's movies you might or might not have seen. ... The Horse Flies depict a scummy lowlife in all its ignorant glory, joyously playing with the corpse of Republican America ripe and fit to burst. Rhythms of revolution? |
Stearns' plaintive, androgynous voice is featured on the band's video of "Hush Little Baby" Yes, it's the traditional nursery rhyme, and would seem to be an unlikely option for MTV. But its familiarity makes the song accessible, and the band's lush treatment of this simple lullaby recalls the song that introduced The Eurhythmics to the world --"Sweet Dreams"-- which, as you may remember, reached hitsville. Furthermore, the dreamy video itself, shot on Roosevelt Island looking towards Manhattan, is a quality piece of work, and doesn't have a speck of the moronic degeneracy so common to the genre. ... Listening to the Horse Flies is a lot easier than trying to explain what they sound like. But despite their odd-to-pace sound and their not-so pretty name--or perhaps because of them-- this group may just put their home burg of Ithaca, New York on the musical map, and some of their offbeat, inventive, thoroughly unique compositions on the charts. |
The Horse Flies swing like mad. |
The Horse Flies' version of the Cramps' "Human Fly" sounds like nothing Lux and Ivy dreamed of, even after their heaviest Russ Meyer all-nighter-- you wouldn't even guess what the song is until after a good four minutes of African percussion, drunken fiddles and sequencers a-clatter. Personally I suspect a conspiracy between Rolf Harris, Steve Reich and the Pet Shop Boys, and I can't wait to hear more. One of the year's most unusual and inventive recordings. |
"I Live Where It's Gray" is a black-humored, industrial portrait of mole-like depression that would do Laurie Anderson proud. File this one somewhere between the ethno-psychedelic cuteness of Camper Van Beethoven and the studied intellectualism of Glass. The Horse Flies ... should grab anyone interested in the outer limits. |
A futuristic amalgam that seems to cover the next century as well as the last ... their music hits you like a boomerang from day after tomorrow. ... Hearing this you instinctively feel you are hearing the pop music of 1998, maybe 2008. This is that far ahead of its time and feels that overwhelmingly right. Buckle your seat belt but don't miss the ride. You gotta hear this! And it gets my highest possible recommendation. Say, album of the year, for starters. |
The Horse Flies provide a quirky and compelling slant to "new wave folk." They have taken a few traditional folk tunes and created their own offbeat lyrics for them, or alternatively, have applied colourful new arrangements to well-known folk ballads. With the addition of some pithy original songwriting in a purposeful and well-sustained groove, the package turns into a novel, upbeat example of folk taken in some bright new directions. |
The Horse Flies forge swords from ploughshares. What is traditional, they shape into something sharp and interesting by applying a little punkish heat, and some icy art-rock minimalistic tempering. The title cut, "Human Fly," which credits the Cramps for inspiration, sounds like a jungle warning and reads like a voodoo incantation. The Horse Flies delight by treating tradition to an acid-bath of modern influences. |
With an almost unthinkable combination of fiddle and banjo, funky electric guitar and bass, arty synthesizer and drums, and new-wave-style vocalists singing provocative lyrics, the Horse Flies have developed a unique sound and distinctive style. ... a spellbinding and at times breathtaking show ... the audience responded with wild cheering and applause. |
If the Horse Flies can generate half of the following on a national level they had last Friday night at the Rongovian Embassy, they're bound for stardom. "It's like this every time they play here," a bartender told me as she hustled drinks for a crowd that hit maximum occupancy code. By 11 p.m. a line of people was listening from the doorway. But fire wouldn't have been much of a problem Friday night-- you could've extinguished a 12-alarm blaze with the sweat produced by the pungent, high spirited audience. |
How many records have you heard lately that combine fiddle, banjo, processed banjo-uke, synthesizer, emulator, tube drums, African beat box, congas, clay drums, balliphone, seed pod, and Macintosh computer programming? Not too damn many. And not many groups could make the combination work to such impressive effect as do the Horse Flies. |
Their forceful blend of traditional melodies with newly politicized lyrics; synthesizer and "Motown" banjo; and "ethnic rock drumming" and fiddling, makes for consciously artsy music that's danceable as well. |
The Horse Flies make noises and hypnotic mazes of sound that almost form a brand new musical entity. Riveting. |
They give the folk-song medium a seductive, haunting spin. |
The vocal arrangements are exceptional, and I was overwhelmed by the scope of fiddler Judy Hyman's work; she covers a lot of ground that is too often considered uncharted territory for fiddlers today. The Horse Flies subtitled this album "Neoprimitive Bug Music." I'm not sure it fits, as this is far deeper than anything that I could consider primitive (or new primitive). It's futuristic and very urban. |
Electro hillbillies, the Horse Flies, have released the best track from "Human Fly" to tickle your lugholes. "Hush Little Baby" sounds like Laurie Anderson meeting the Simon Sisters, a mellow cut with toning fiddle and Caribbean style synths. The Flies are one of the more left-field discoveries of the year. |
This is as compelling a record as I've heard lately. The Horse Flies ... create an immediately contemporary and spellbinding sound. The lyrics are alternately knowing and funny, allusive and elusive. Next time you're looking for something new and challenging, take a chance here. |
Brave New Waves better put this on top of the playlist right now. |
