Introducing: The Horse's Ha

Name: The Horse's Ha
From: Chicago, Illinois
Story: To the piano-bar born
Sound: Nancy & Lee

Once upon a Chicago night, a pair of star-cross'd Thrill Jockey alumni met. Janet Beveridge Bean —veteran of ragged-rock outfit Eleventh Dream Day and cowgirl sweethearts Freakwater— and James Elkington —the English ex-pat who fronted soft-pop outfit The Zincs— struck up a conversation that almost immediately took an interesting turn. When the subject turned to playing in tasteful piano-bars for large sums of money, an idea soon came up: they would play in tasteful piano-bars for large sums of money.

After working up a set of standards, Bean and Elkington soon abandoned those, and, then, abandoned their piano-bar dreams. Instead, they penned their own songs, and became a (sort of) band. One who, now, comes with the name The Horse's Ha.

Their debut LP as The Horse's Ha, Of the Cathmawr Yards (both band and album titles are references to infamous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas), is a set of duets matching Elkington's dapper baritone with Bean's honeyed voice. Evoking such beauty-and-the-beast pairings as Nancy & Lee and Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, it's an album twangy, atmospheric, and vaguely mysterious; a moody, moonlit take on urbane country that's, frankly (and thankfully), far too spooky a soundtrack for some rarefied wine bar.

• Listen: The Horse's Ha, "Asleep in a Waterfall"
• Listen: The Horse's Ha, "The Piss Choir"

The Horse's Rides
July 3: Chicago, IL - Schuba's
July 27: Pittsburgh, PA - Thunderbird Cafe
July 28: Arlington, VA - IOTA
July 29: Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda
July 30: Brooklyn, NY - Bruar Falls
July 31: Brooklyn, NY - The Bell House
August 1: New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
August 2: Cleveland, OH - Beachland Tavern
September 19: Champaign, IL - Pygmalion Festival

Photo © James Elkington