The great DC punks Ekko Astral were a Stereogum Band To Watch last year, and that's when they released their excellent debut album pink balloons. This year, the band has been busy. They put on their own trans rights festival Liberation Weekend in DC, and they went out on tour with PUP and Jeff Rosenstock. Today, they follow their late-2024 single "Pomegranate Tree" with an even-more-intense rage-out called "Horseglue."
Ekko Astral have been playing "Horseglue" live since last year, and I bet it kills when you're in the room. It's a noisy, damaged two-minute attack inspired by frontwoman Jael Holzman's time as a reporter in Congress. As pounding drums and scraping noise guitars get louder, Holzman delivers an almost mystical incantation about a broken world: "Why am I so close to genocide?/ Free for all/ Trial balloon/ I'm floating/ We all float/ Drone bomb you." On Tumblr, Holzman wrote a long essay about the song's entire backstory and about her time working in Congress. Here's a piece of it:
"Horseglue" is a screeching call for moral clarity. Anything short of courage against the rise of The New Authoritaria is complicity. It is important to focus on how integral the Messengers really are, and that some of them are the 1% too. They are rich and they are happy without consequence, as a vast majority of us suffer in the shadows of the unknown.
Below, check out the stark black-and-white "Horseglue" video, which Holzman co-directed with John Lee, and Ekko Astral's upcoming shows.
TOUR DATES:
3/25-29 - Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Fest
3/26 - Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile *
3/28 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater *
3/30 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel *
3/31 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent Theater *
* with Mclusky
"Horseglue" is out now on Topshelf.
