The Chocolate Horse
Cincinnati, Ohio, United States | INDIE
Music
Press
It’s fall and slowly turning into winter in the Cincinnati area, and it’s also the time when music releases start to slow down as well. So it was a really great treat to get ahold of the new album from The Chocolate Horse a couple weeks ago. Since their debut record a couple years ago, The Chocolate Horse have raised their game to become one of the best bands in Cincinnati and the new record cements them into that category.
We Don’t Stand On Ceremony follows the excellent debut album from the band, Patience Works!, which the band released on their own label, as a vinyl and digital output. Not only do we love the way that album was released, but it was a catchy, warm adventure into layers of strings and diverse sounds.
The new album is actually more diverse, as frontman Jason Snell and his bandmates incorporate instruments again like banjo, French horn, flute, upright bass, drums and piano but also take a stab at some electronic weirdness here and there, courtesy of their affection for The Flaming Lips. For alot of bands this trip down a more psychedelic path could end up disastrous, but the subtly of it works really well for The Chocolate Horse.
Take the lead track from the album for example, “Your Daughter”, which begins with some spacey sounding feedback and and blips and softly merges into a gentle but building burner of a song. So far, it’s easily my favorite track from the new album.
So it’s not difficult for us to embrace this new record from The Chocolate Horse as one of our favorite local releases of 2009 already, and we encourage you to pick up a copy on vinyl or digital from the band as well right here. Snag a song for download below to get a taste. - Each Note Secure - Joe Long WOXY
In at least one sense the menagerie of rock bands that converge on Austin each year is literal: there’s a Noah’s Ark of animal names here, from the “wolfs” that have been so strangely ubiquitous in indie-rock recently — Sea Wolf, Pack of Wolves, Wolfkin, Peter and the Wolf, Le Loup and the debatable Wolff — to no small number of dogs, apes, lions, birds, whales and even dinosaurs.
Here is a sampling of the critter bands. I’m discovering new species every time I look at the schedule.
Cocker Spaniels
Bowerbirds
Deer Tick
Be Your Own Pet
The Republic Tigers
Elf Power
Music for Animals
Dertybird
Fight Like Apes
Dead Dog
Fleet Foxes
Panda
Simian Mobile Disco
Dodos
Birdmonster
Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man
Pigeon Detectives
Mothfight
Collections of Colonies of Bees
Japanther
The Octopus Project
White Rabbits
Apes
Plants and Animals
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Moonrats
Wombats
Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast
Two Cow Garage
Ghost Buffalo
Cat Party
Golden Dogs
Iguanas
Lions
Dale Hawkins with Rockin’ Billy and the Wild Coyotes
Tweak Bird
Panther
Birds & Batteries
Frightened Rabbit
Mouser
We vs. the Shark
Quiet Hooves
Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears
Noah and the Whale
An Albatross
The Blind Pets
The Faceless Werewolves
Tiny Animals
Megazilla
Horsebite
Horse+Donkey
Clothes Horse
The Chocolate Horse
Woodpigeon
Eagle Seagull
There’s even a “10,000 B.C.” theme this year:
Pterodactyl
Pteroacdudes
Lady Pterodactyl
Bronze Age
Diplo (short for diplodocus)
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
- New York Times By BEN SISARIO
"The Caribbean" - the Chocolate Horse I find this very distinctive blend of homeliness and sophistication completely enjoyable. The Chocolate Horse are five guys from Cincinnati who give the impression of playing whatever instruments they feel like playing, in whatever style they happen to start playing. If "The Caribbean" has an island sound to it, we're talking about a peculiar island---one that maybe grows both palm trees and cacti, on which cowboys on horses saunter down the beach in suede bathing trunks and everyone else is on vacation, but prefers to stay inside reading and listening to the radio, which only broadcast bands from Omaha pretending to be from Cuba.
Or something like that. Over and above the rhythm's lazy sway and the eccentric interplay of trumpet, upright bass, and (dobro?) guitar, "The Caribbean" succeeds on the strength of Jason Snell's oddly appealing voice. Half whispering, half growling, Snell sings with a historical sort of command, his voice echoing with the authority of some long-lost '70s crooner, augmented with a ghostly falsetto and an indie rocker's penchant for straying (winsomely) off pitch. A French horn and a saw are additional recruits in the Chocolate Horse's instrument arsenal, although I'm not sure I'm hearing the latter in this song, and I may be imagining the occasional appearance here of the former.
"The Caribbean" is a song from the band's debut CD, Patience Works!, which was released last year and recorded when they were still officially a trio. Like every other band in the world, and every other music lover (truly, I'm sure no one is left around this week to read this except maybe you), the Chocolate Horse will be in Austin for SXSW. The MP3 is available via the vast SXSW MP3 collection. - Fingertips
Discography
Beasts, STA-010 (will be available on vinyl, CD, and digital download - Crash Avenue PR / Counter Rhythm Group PR
We Don't Stand on Ceremony, STA-002 (available on vinyl, CD, and MP3)
Patience Works!, STA-001 (available on vinyl, CD, and MP3) Bar Code UPC: 859700241271
Check us out on:
http://chocolatehorse.bandcamp.com/
http://www.thechocolatehorse.com
Photos
Bio
The Chocolate Horse is Jason Snell (vocals, guitar, banjo), Andrew Higley (keyboards, horns, bowed saw, vibraphone) and Joe Suer (percussion).
Jason Snell began The Chocolate Horse as a modest side-project in the summer of 2003. It was happily self-indulgent, centered on writing simple, slightly romantic 2-minute one-liners with an old guitar and a worn-in banjo, recorded on a deteriorating 4-track recording device in which only two tracks worked. Realizing the project’s potential and imagining a bigger, more vibrant sound Snell invited good friends and fellow musicians Andrew Higley (French horn, saw and bow, trumpet, piano, fun machine), and Paul Brumm (upright bass, vocals) to join in. The result was a whirlwind of experimentation and the birth of the hauntingly melodic, non-traditional edge that is The Chocolate Horse.
The trio’s energy paid off and in 2007 the band released their first full-length vinyl album, Patience Works! (STA-001) on the band's own Stable Records. The Chocolate Horse performed their way through Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois, and appeared at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas in 2008. As the band grew in momentum, confidence, and popularity they picked up new members and instruments along the way, each shaping and molding The Chocolate Horse into a elegant amalgamation of sound. By 2009 The Chocolate Horse had become a six-piece band, adding Johnny Ruzsa (Alto flute, Ocarina, percussion), Dave Cahill (drums), and Sharon Udoh (keys, vocals).
On October 16th, 2009 the band officially made their house a home with the release of their second full-length vinyl album entitled We Don't Stand on Ceremony. In addition to recording in the Stable Records studio, the 6-piece put time in at John Curley's (Afghan Whigs) Ultrasuede Studios, as well as at Manimal Studio with Tobe Donohue (Animal Crackers). Moonlighting on the record are Jim Feist (Tabla) and Tobe Donohue of Animal Crackers (drums). We Don't Stand on Ceremony's maturity is audible, from the expressive, cryptic lyrics to the clean layering of various instrumental sounds, crowned by the unexpected yet pure noise of a beat machine.
Applying every resource at their disposal, Beasts distills all the Horse's individual talents into a cohesive, lush presentation. Mixing was ably handled by Joe Costa (Ben Folds, Greenhornes).
The Chocolate Horse has performed with
WHY? (Anticon Records)
Fiery Furnaces (Thrill Jockey)
Heartless Bastards (Fat Possum Records)
Tobacco (Anticon)
Elf Power (Orange Twin)
Ass Pony’s (A&M Records)
Dismemberment Plan (Desoto Records)
Beauty Pill (Desoto Records)
US Maple (Thirll Jockey)
Jackie-O-Mutherfucker (Jet Set Records)
Influences:
The Who, The Alarm Clocks, Guided By Voices, Kraftwerk, Sparklehorse, Squarepusher, Tom Waits, and The Flaming Lips to name a few.
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