Desperate Living (album)
Desperate Living is the fourth studio album by Horse the Band, released October 6, 2009, through Vagrant Records. Overview. The album sees a departure from the band's reliance on the Nintendocore sound which predominantly defined their earlier records, instead "Desperate Living" explores more experimental qualities. The bass guitar's role in the music (as well as in the band itself) has been diminished slightly, with the lower registers mainly serving as counters for the guitar and keyboard melodies instead of the rhythm section role of music of their style. The album is also unique in comparison  with the band's previous work in that there is considerably more synthesized bass, orchestration, and drum programming featured. Those who purchased the album through iTunes received remixes by the members of Horse the Band's favorite artists and members of the band itself under different identities. The album reached #125 at "Billboard" 200 chart. Jamie Stewart of the band Xiu Xiu appears on Horse the Band's fourth album as per request from Erik Engstrom in an AIM message he sent to Stewart. Stewart commented on his role in the recording process, stating, "Horse the band has asked me  to try to help them make a dying robot, an exploding keyboard, a dream laugh, and a melted, drastic flute of redemption. Lucky for you and for me they have the wit and creativity to turn these things into music." Also featured on the album is classical pianist Valentina Lisitsa on the song "Rape Escape". She is featured playing "a fragment of the cadenza of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2, the emotional climax and most technically demanding section of one of the most difficult pieces ever written for piano". According to Engstrom, "She plays like she is possessed by  the song, like she is channeling the composer and understanding their intentions and feelings better than they understood them when they were writing the song." Engstrom was very satisfied with her inclusion on the album by also stating "Only a handful of pianists in the world could play the piece, and she embarasses ("sic") every single one of them." It was reported that Lisitsa recorded the piano piece in her home studio and broke a string while recording it.