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Horsegirl take musical cues from the '90s alternative scene (shoegaze, noise rock, indie pop) while also showing off a healthy regard for the scenes (college rock, post-punk) that paved the way for that decade's sounds. In 2022, the trio channeled these elements into something both familiar and disarming on their debut album, Versions of Modern Performance. 2025's Phonetics On and On found the band reexamining their sound and stripping it down with the help of producer Cate Le Bon.

The group's guitarist/vocalists Penelope Lowenstein and Nora Cheng met at a young age while both were taking part in one of Chicago's youth music programs. They realized that they shared many musical influences -- Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon being a major one -- and began going to shows together. At one of them, they met drummer Gigi Reece, who had also been in a similar music program and shared their musical taste. The three traded favorite songs back and forth and hatched a plan to start a band. They named it Horsegirl and started playing shows held at all-ages venues like art museums and youth centers. Influences were added to the mix at a dizzying pace as the musicians discovered more of the past, including bands on the Flying Nun label and German art rock of the '70s to go along with their core interests in '90s indie rock like Yo La Tengo and Pavement.

With the help of some friends, they recorded three songs in the basement of one of their houses and released the resulting EP, Ballroom Dance Scene, online. The reception to the songs was very positive, with U.K. label Sonic Cathedral (home of artists like Lorelle Meets the Obsolete and Andy Bell of Ride) releasing two of the songs -- "Ballroom Dance Scene" and "Sea Life Sandwich Boy" -- as a single in early 2021. By that point, Horsegirl had weathered the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown in their respective homes, and when restrictions loosened, the trio of high school students took Zoom classes together in the mornings and rehearsed in the afternoon.

Long-running tastemakers Matador were another label that was impressed by the group's EP; in April 2021 it signed Horsegirl, much to the band's delight and amazement. They started work on an album almost immediately, rushing to finish before the recently graduated Cheng and Reece headed off to N.Y.C. for college. The band decamped to Chicago's famed Electrical Audio studios with John Agnello -- a longtime Dinosaur Jr. collaborator -- in the producer's chair. The trio whipped up an album that wove together angular post-punk rhythms, grinding shoegaze noise, sweetly sung indie pop, and avant-garde snippets of sound into something that was informed by the past but not bound to its traditions. Versions of Modern Performance was issued in June 2022, just as school was letting out, which allowed Horsegirl to head out on their first long jaunt across the U.S.

The next two years were busy as the trio continued their schooling along with playing shows with Wilco in Chicago, appearing at Coachella and SummerStage in Central Park, as well as touring with fellow Matador band Lifeguard and the Breeders. Meanwhile, they continued to write songs, a proposition made easier by all three bandmates living in N.Y.C. full-time, and in early 2024 headed back to Chicago to record their second album. Working with Cate Le Bon as producer, the group stripped away much of the noise and distortion of earlier recordings and instead focused on space and the sound in between the notes. Phonetics On and On was released in February 2025 by Matador. ~ Tim Sendra