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I learned about Horseback—otherwise known as Jenks Miller of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and assorted collaborators—thanks to the arid, pitch-black, mesmerizing LP The Invisible Mountain, released in 2009 on Milwaukee’s Utech label. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is the A side of a Horseback seven-inch due in early April on Brutal Panda, and like my favorite songs from Miller and company, it’s a hypnotizing high-desert bad trip.

Philip Montoro has been an editorial employee of the Reader since 1996 and its music editor since 2004. Pieces he has edited have appeared in Da Capo’s annual Best Music Writing anthologies in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. He shared two Lisagor Awards in 2019 for a story on gospel pioneer Lou Della Evans-Reid and another in 2021 for Leor Galil's history of Neo, and he’s also split three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia: one for multimedia in 2019 for his work on the TRiiBE collaboration the Block Beat, and two (in 2020 and 2022) for editing the music writing of Reader staffer Leor Galil. You can also follow him on Twitter.