Horsegirl, Godcaster

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Chase Middleton

The three members of Horsegirl with tropies.

Horsegirl

media release: Horsegirl — the New York-via-Chicago trio of best friends Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece — release the single/video for “Frontrunner,” the final single off their upcoming sophomore album, Phonetics On and On, out this Friday via Matador Records. In conjunction, the band announce a North American summer tour, on sale this Friday at 10am local time. “Frontrunner," following previously released singles "Julie," "Switch Over," and "2468," showcases the confident simplicity in the band’s songwriting, calling to mind the playful and sparsely populated arrangements of bands like The Feelies and Young Marble Giants. Lyrically, the song leads us through familiar scenes of girlhood and youth, with Lowenstein tenderly singing about a quiet morning reading in bed with your partner sleeping beside you: “In the morning / When you’re sleeping / I can’t wait and I can’t wait to compromise / In the morning / When you’re sleeping - I can’t wait and I can’t wait.”

Directed and edited by the band, the “Frontrunner” video depicts Lowenstein, Reece, and Cheng searching for one another in various locations throughout their hometown of Chicago.

Produced by Cate Le Bon and recorded at The Loft in Chicago, Horsegirl’s original and sonic home, Phonetics On and On explores the limits of the trio configuration— what if instead of filling out songs with distortion, they utilized the expanse that the three of them didn't occupy? This question is the guiding force behind the record, and the songs are a testament to experimenting with space and texture while maintaining a pop song at the core. It’s an album to dance to, as Reece’s dancing drum melodies and Lowenstein’s bright guitar leads direct your attention to the band’s chemistry and mastery of form.

"Chicago trio strip down their sound and embrace newfound minimalism, all while maintaining their idiosyncratic charm.”

— Consequence, “The Most Anticipated Albums of 2025”

“A next step forward for a band with a long road ahead.” — Esquire

“Fresh, alive, and reimagined with exquisite taste.” — Vanity Fair

Over the past five years, Godcaster has become a name that's almost impossible to miss in certain corners of the underground music world. Emerging from New York scene alongside bands like Model/Actriz and Water From Your Eyes, Godcaster have become a consistent presence, mostly through word-of-mouth buzz around their two well-received albums (2020's Long Haired Locusts and 2023's self-titled), and their arresting live shows. NPR has called them "one of the most promising groups in the booming East Coast avant-rock underground," Pitchfork has complimented their "inventive art-rock on a monumental scale," and Rolling Stone annointed them one of the best bands at SXSW in 2024.   

Between the release of their debut EP in 2019 and their 2023 LP, the band released music at a pace as frantic as their live performances, releasing two full length albums, two EPs and a stack of singles in a little over three years, but it's been over 18 months since the wider world last heard from them. 

Godcaster are now returning to share a new single entitled "Judy Living Daylights" that was produced by Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes, and announcing a hometown residency at the new Manhattan venue Night Club 101, which will take place in April.

A song about a holograph girl with a morphine laugh, a hazy innocent heartbreak, surgery, and pain meds. On Godcaster’s new song “Judy Living Daylights,” lead singer Judson Kolk dives into lyrical cliches; phrases that roll off the tongue, lyrics you’ve heard packaged and repackaged a million times, those “universal” lines that everyone just sort of knows like “I see right through her morphine drip of a laugh,” he sings “those words untrue, taste like morphine until you drift away.”