Estonia's Holy Motors swirl together shoegaze, country, R&B, and psych-rock into a mirage that reflects the American dream as well as their homeland's post-Soviet history. On early releases like 2015's Heavenly Creatures/Running Water, their debt to forerunners like Mazzy Star was apparent, but their distinctive approach -- which was defined by Eliann Tulve's eloquently sleepy vocals -- soon made itself known. The band started to branch out on their evocative 2018 debut album Slow Sundown, and with 2020's desolate, twangy Horse, they established themselves as masters of mysterious yet strangely familiar music.

Holy Motors formed in Tallinn, Estonia in 2013, when songwriter/guitarist Lauri Raus brought in vocalist/songwriter Tulve to complete a lineup that included guitarist Gert Gutmann and drummer Caspar Salo. Tulve, who was 16 at the time, came from a musical family and sang in a choir as a child, but had never performed in a band before. However, her voice and viewpoint were a perfect fit for the cinematic brand of dream pop the band was crafting. Taking their name from Leos Carax's hallucinatory 2012 film, Holy Motors soon began playing shows, including that year's Tallinn Music Week showcase. Merchandise's Carson Cox saw Holy Motors and introduced them to the Florida label Hidden Eye, which, along with Wharf Cat Records, released the band's 2015 debut single, Heavenly Creatures/Running Water, which was mixed by the Men's Ben Greenberg. Another single, Sleeprydr b/w Descending, arrived in early 2017. Holy Motors reunited with Cox to record their debut album, Slow Sundown, a set of songs that included some of their singles as well as unreleased material, it arrived in February 2018 and earned critical acclaim that included a Debut Album of the Year nomination at that year's Estonian Music Awards. The album also caught the ear of Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe, who collaborated with them in the studio in 2019 and performed with them at the Nox Orae festival in Switzerland. During their extensive touring in support of Slow Sundown, Holy Motors wrote songs for their second album. In October 2020, Wharf Cat released Horse, which found the band digging deeper into their love for the American West and its music.
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