The Baltimore based experimental gurus HORSE LORDS have returned with the brand new album Interventions; a wild mixture of undulating polyrhythms, neo-krautrock grooves, and minimalist ambience.

Released last month by the boundary pushing Northern Spy Records (home to like-minded artists such as Cloud Becomes Your Hand, PC Worship) Interventions finds the band picking up where they left off with 2012’s Hidden Cities but with (dare i say it?) a new-found focus and discipline.

As an album, Interventions alternates between hypnotic groove based compositions and more stripped-back ambient pieces.  The groove songs play as hypnotic free-form jams relying on perfect ensemble percussion rhythms and droning bass riffs that slowly change throughout the course of the compositions, while guitar and saxophone melodies fight over the top of the grooves hocketing between one another and finishing each other’s sentences.  As hypnotizing as the rhythms may be there is always a shift or a sharp cut around the corner, keeping the listener on their toes.  The ambient “intervention” pieces serve as sonic renewal exercises, bringing you out of the ecstatic state of the rhythm songs and granting a temporary relief.

The album is fantastic, taking the best elements of CAN’s rhythm section and combining it with West African guitar techniques and La Monte Young-esque compositional practices. Highly recommended.