Shit Horse

If the name didn’t suggest it, the music does: Shit Horse is an audaciously and delightfully weird band. To date, the Chapel Hill quartet has only one release to its name—a seven-song cassette called They Shit Horses, Don’t They? That collection offers post-punk groove, slathered in psychedelic soul and confrontational surrealism. It, like the band that made it, is as confusing as it is captivating.

Opener “Twelve Horses” begins with a chiming, snake-charming guitar riff before a monastic chant—“I wish you 12 horses when you die,” delivered in blank-faced harmony—paves a runway for Shit Horse’s savant-like frontman Danny “Magic” Mason. The singer, a 50-something black man known for his dapper and brightly colored outfits, certainly stands apart from his younger, white bandmates. After all, they split their timein  an assortment of shaggy indie rock bands (Wild Wild Geese, American In France). As a vocalist, though, Mason stands apart in conviction: Apart from his bandmates’ glazed-over buzz, though, Mason delivers his vocals like a pentecostal preacher speaking in tongues, finding proto-hip-hop rhythm and flow in a James Brown bark.

What the foursome pulls together on the recording is a daring, adventurous excursion to the trippiest depths of psychedelic garage rock. But the band’s performances might be even more surreal. On a stage or a streetcorner—many of Shit Horse’s performances are impromptu public jam-outs—the music comes bolstered by infectious energy, with Mason in his customary finery, offering his rants and raves. Usually, there’s a machine-gun toting go-go-dancer, too, topless and anonymous behind a horse-head mask. It’s not unlike watching someone else’s drug trip from a state of befuddled, delighted lucidity. —Bryan Reed