Today Rusty Santos, musician and experimental pop producer (Animal Collective / Panda Bear, Born Ruffians, DJ Rashad, etc.), shares a new single, “Party With Ben” from his forthcoming 2026 solo album, Psycho Horses. He also explains a social media video post he made, inspired by Alvin Lucier, that is starting to go viral.
“A trio of acoustic guitar, drum kit, and electric bass is the backdrop on this ode to the nightlife. The setting is NYC circa the 2000s, where art, music, and fashion co-existed in the same space. The mainstream crowd, which is inseparable from social media culture today, queued up for a different party. Although this song has the aura of an anthem, at heart, it’s an acoustic ballad about knowing when to party.”
Made entirely inside a social media app, Rusty Santos’ “This Is An Experiment” video explores generation loss, a concept pioneered by the composer of “I Am Sitting in a Room.” The speech in Rusty’s video pays homage to Lucier’s original text; it’s a description of the process of what is occurring during the performance, but updated for the duration of a short-form video, and explores visual transformation. This video is intended to be encountered by a social media user checking their feed.
There is no use of AI. Also, no digital effects were applied to the image or sound. Rusty credits Alvin Lucier as the inspiration for the piece, acknowledging the lineage of this artistic concept while adapting the medium for the social media age.
Rusty Santos’ solo music belongs to a different timeline, one where music moved at its own speed, and artists stand out in contrast to their scenes. On his new album, as an artist, he eclipses his role as producer. Metaphysical lyrics and psych folk textures remain, yet the mood is darker. Here, he is no longer a stranger to the city of Los Angeles, and the work is a conversation with his musical heroes. It’s as art-world-saturated as The Velvet Underground. Like Arthur Russell, he’s in revolt, an outsider amongst the indie pop music of his own time; he sounds like the avant-garde Elliot Smith. Yet, he is all of their artistic cousin, with blood of the same lineage, but walking the alternative path, as these references are only signposts, and his music aims to sound like nobody else.
There are layers of acoustic guitar, backed by a minimoog synthesizer, drum kits recorded through effect pedals, fuzzy electric bass, and guitar. Still, his presentation of these elements marks a departure point. He performs in alternate tunings, utilizing frequencies that sound unfamiliar. This is an album that could have been recorded in any era, even with the audible influence of acoustic provocateurs like Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen; yet, the DNA is that of indie rock’s golden age. That it might seem familiar is because Santos has worked on seminal music by fellow trailblazers Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Weyes Blood, Black Dice, Dawn of Midi, Owen Pallett, Beach House, Dirty Projectors, DJ Rashad, Gang Gang Dance, and more.
Psycho Horses reveals poetry in the grotesque. These sad songs about isolation, trauma, and betrayal also explore themes of evolution, self-discovery, and ultimately, how ephemeral our time together in this place we call Earth actually is. This scenery may be macabre, but these words are sung by someone who feels cursed by the beauty of the world and is devastated by how determined we are to deny it. On side A, the music transitions from atmospheric to energetic, following a parabolic curve; on side B, the music becomes more precise, and the parabolic curve now descends. Santos’ existential song lyrics guide the listener on their ascent and descent into epistemological oblivion. It is a deceptively straightforward sound, and although this music may be from a different timeline, it belongs to the here and now.
