Horse Feathers, an indie folk outfit based in Portland, Oregon, centers on singer/songwriter Justin Ringle handling acoustic guitar, vocals, and percussion alongside a fluid lineup of additional players that frequently features multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick along with cellists Heather Woods Broderick and Catherine Odell and violinist Nathan Crockett. Emerging in 2004 as a lean, sorrowful acoustic project, the group shifted toward a lighter, more buoyant style on the 2014 release So It Is with Us, drawing audible cues from the folk-rock and country-rock sounds of the 1970s.
Ringle spent his formative years in Idaho and took part in several fleeting indie rock groups before relocating to Portland and launching performances under the Horse Feathers name. There he encountered Broderick, already known through the established local group Norfolk & Western. Throughout much of 2005 the pair concentrated on crafting material and refining their stage presence via Portland open-mike appearances, solidifying Horse Feathers as a duo.
Taking cues from the austere acoustic textures of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska as well as the post-classical compositions of German composer Max Richter, they entered the studio in February 2006 to lay down Words Are Dead, a chamber folk set spotlighting Ringle’s high, reedy vocals and Broderick’s Baroque ornamentation. The album appeared on Lucky Madison Records in September 2006. The following year the band signed with Kill Rock Stars, which issued House with No Home in 2008; that record ranked among the label’s strongest-selling debuts ever. Thistled Spring arrived in 2010 as the first Horse Feathers album made without Broderick’s participation.
The quartet’s fourth studio effort, Cynic’s New Year, surfaced in 2012 and became their initial release to move enough copies for a placement on the Top 200 albums chart. On 2014’s So It Is with Us, Ringle expanded the core lineup with a bassist and drummer, steering the music toward a brighter and more approachable direction. That trajectory extended into 2018’s Appreciation, whose Southern-inflected palette began weaving in touches of classic soul and R&B.
