HORSEBACK	Photo: Derek Anderson, 2007
Chapel Hill, NC
Band members: Jenks Miller
Booking/Contact: horsebacknoise[at]gmail[dot]com
Band Website: myspace.com/horsebacknoise
Jenks Miller spent three years conceptualizing and recording Impale Golden Horn, his solo debut as Horseback, in a basement in Chapel Hill, N.C. Impale Golden Horn isn't an ordinary drone album, and Miller--who currently spreads his time over six bands, from pop trio Un Deux Trois to spaz-and-metal melders In the Year of the Pig--isn't an ordinary drone artist. Having struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder for 15 years, Miller conceptualized Impale Golden Horn as a holistic, glowing reaction to his symptoms and the way he envisions and fears that most essential human component: blood. As such, each of these four connected environments builds, floats and disintegrates with a sense of detail, patience and timing that's rapturous and mesmerizing. Whether it's a resplendent ping surfacing from a submerged piano or a broad, sweeping pass from a corroded but coruscating electric guitar, Impale Golden Horn is the work of a perfectionist trying to keep his deepest worries at bay.
Impale Golden Horn July 2007 [HFQ001/BTR002]
"So gorgeous. Absolutely one of our favorite new records, a practically perfect fade-out-drift-off-drone-dream-disc ... Best drone record of the year? Quite possibly... " -- Aquarius Records (New Arrivals 270, July 2007) "'Finale' is a pretty brazen debut for Chapel Hill noisician Jenks Miller, an ebow-chugging mix of ever-overlapping drones and shimmering squall. Calling it 'Finale'—even though it's the first track on the record—was as obvious a choice as, say, 'Exit Music (For A Film)' or 'Ascension.'" (9/10) -- Paper Thin Walls (March 2007) "Miller's attention to detail is astonishing as he builds and deconstructs his instrumental tales. The songs lull you into a blissful dream-like state before slowly bringing you back into consciousness." -- Sound as Language "Though it be noise, it isn't abrasive. [Its] atonality becomes a densely layered blanket that sweeps over the listener heavily, but without smothering. The faintest hints of a melody seep through the fog from time to time, like the remnants of a pleasantly remembered dream." -- The Daily Tarheel (June 2007)