Horses - Every Dumb Thing I Ever Did
Horses is the newest project from Italian-born, UK-based producer Alessio Natalizia, better known as Not Waving. This latest project focuses much more on loops of live recording than on the slow-moving ambience of 2024 or the dance-music-adjacent electronica from before that. This new take borrows heavily from previous works, such as The Place I've Been Missing (2023), opting for non-genre-specific productions. That creates a very vibey production, attempting to translate feeling through whatever conventions fit.
Every Dumb Thing I Ever Did (2025) can be most accurately summed up as an offshoot of folk music, although its inspirations are too broad to be pigeonholed like that. There are elements of Balearic and medieval music, with nods to Studio Ghibli soundtracks, while paying homage to minimalist heavyweights like Steve Reich's loop-based compositions. The influences are endless, and while at times it can leave the album sounding slightly disjointed, the key principle that keeps everything ticking along is a transcendental lean toward the more mystical side of that capital-F folk. Horses take simple, beautiful loops and subtly shift them further into the uncanny valley. Instruments start to flow into one another, such as on the track 'Where Stars Are Drowning', where Plucked notes take on breathy qualities and seem to have a metallic finish, making it unclear whether it's a pan flute, xylophone, or acoustic guitar. What impresses me most is that it is not three separate instruments layered on top of each other. This is one instrument which morphs as it changes throughout the short playtime. Similar techniques are used on 'As Long As I Can See The Light', where the main melody feels simultaneously reversed, synthesised, and acoustic, all while sounding like a single instrument.
For those familiar with Natalizia's work under his Not Waving alias, there's a lot to like here. Those familiar effects-laden textures from albums Infinite Light and Wings of Desire from 2024 still play a large part in this album. While the ambient textures may be relegated to the background, the more complex melodic content lends itself to greater replayability. Again, while some of the ethereal aspects of Not Waving are lost on this new project, there's something to be said for how well Every Dumb Thing I Ever Did captures the feeling of folk music. Throughout the album's runtime, Horses conveys what folk music should feel like rather than just what it should sound like. The electronic elements woven throughout the album create a sense of mysticism that feels pulled right out of the pages of a children's book.
It's hard to quantify precisely what Horses is doing throughout the album that makes it so spiritual, but taking a track like Let's Be Quiet Together, there's a palpable sense of leaning into the past. The amount of emotional motion horses jump into every orifice at these recordings is astonishing. Just take 'Your Smile Is A Thin Disguise' where gentle playing and swelling reverbs don't so much pull on those heart strings but slowly caress them. Other times, these moments aren't quite as on the nose, such as in 'Between The Wish And The Thing The World Lies Waiting', where the slow pulsation created by effects conveys the essence of journeying or travel, a staple of old proverbs. Horses have found a beautiful middle ground between folk and electronica, which excites me greatly. The combination of which brings those old mystical photos to life in a way that is unachievable with instruments alone.
Ecstatic Recordings (2025)
Horses - Every Dumb Thing I Ever Did
