The Healing Power of Horses defy pop expectations on off-the-wall “TOURNIQUET”

Of everything on Summer Indoors (or outside wearing black), “TOURNIQUET” is its darkest cut. Breathy, deadpan delivery driven by a malleable industrial pop pulse that unexpectedly ends on a discomfiting jingle. It’s markedly club-ready with its blown out hi-hats and perpetual low-pitched bass, more than the unsettling, sultry trip-hop “i wait, i sink”, and the two-part dark to light “In Yr Right Hand Reveal Heaven”.

The freshness is born from the internet era, an outcome made possible by the strides made in underground digital pop. Now signed to Partisan Records’ LA imprint section1, which houses similar boundary-pushing artists like RIP Magic and Sword II, the duo reside in an incredible home where their innovation can flourish.

The thing about The Healing Power of Horses is that they seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Even before the EP drop, there is next to no information online about who they are. “We are a bit reclusive. We tend to live in our own world,” they admit. However, they’re quick to dispel the rumours of their sudden emergence, confirming they’ve made music together for around five years and under different aliases. If anything, their mystique happened by accident: “It’s funny because it’s more just we’ve been making stuff for ourselves for quite a long time.”

Some detective work does raise more questions. The Healing Power of Horses’ first release was actually an untitled tape released by Glasgow-based DIY label No Soap, which has more to do with Pavement-inspired indie rock than the indefinable pop they’re now releasing. “That material was sort of like a love letter to our friends,” they say. It’s effortlessly cool, lo-fi, like bar italia for the sunshine, with the closer “someone’s got it better than you” alone worth seeking out. Yet their attempt to replicate rock music “straight down the line” made them “increasingly irritated.” The pair “started using the computer for what the computer is good for.” When they reveal their current music is more like what they made before the tape, it becomes even more of an outlier.

Since moving to East Anglia, they apparently locked themselves away in an attic to chip away at what sounds like an overwhelming number of songs. “We’re quite backed up with a lot of material, it’s a genuine problem,” they laugh. “This whole project is almost like a mission to stop hoarding, from both of us, because there are so many tracks.” I ask why they’ve made more of a public presence now, and I’m told it’s because of “The combination of time and place, and people listening... a sense that it had to come out eventually.”

The resultant EP was pieced together like a puzzle, from a selection of 15 to 20 tracks that fit together best. When they’re writing, nothing is laboured over, which probably explains their loose arrangements. They don’t have demos; the songs are made as is. The dark sound they settled on came from listening to trip hop as well as witch house like SALEM, but there’s an unavoidable light that always creeps through. “I think we’re incapable of making anything that’s truly, truly dark. It never quite happens. Sometimes I want it to happen, but it’s just impossible.”

The twosome tell each other it comes down to balancing being icy and sunny. Both find they’re more of one of those things than the other. “I can’t do icy. I always end up trying to stick a Harry Nilsson string arrangement somewhere because I’m so drawn to that,” one says. “TOURNIQUET” and the neoclassical art pop “So-Perfect (Combing)” are great demonstrations of this push-and-pull, where they’re informed by Memphis rap and black metal, but also folkloric elements. “There’s probably a drive towards something a bit more spiritual than what we were doing before,” they say. That spirituality is channelled in multiple ways: their angelic visual presentation; poetic prose with religious motifs on their Blogger; and the way they release their music. “We like the idea of things being able to stand on their own terms.”

The challenge they’ve faced is taking their digital music to life on stage. They’ve worked in multiple iterations, previously just the two of them, now backed by a bassist and drummer. Playing live makes their songs take on a different life. “You’re like, ‘Oh, maybe I actually do like this song again,’ having heard it a thousand times before in the studio.” Their favourite gigs are ones where the audience isn’t embarrassed to dance, and that is exactly what they want to achieve. “We see our music as very groove-based. It’s designed to move bodies, ideally. That’s the platonic ideal – it has that heady thing that can get people to move.”

The Healing Power of Horses’ future is wide open. They’ve done the hard thing – being brave enough to make their mark – and now they’re ready to continue making music for as long as they are humanly able. “It feels great to let this stuff out because it’s not yours anymore, at that point it belongs to other people. That’s nice because you can get on to the next thing, which is fundamentally where we’re always at.” Whatever comes next will reveal a little more of this captivating, multifaceted dynamic.