Tiny Horse

To see and hear Kingston, Ontario indie rock outfit Tiny Horse is to step into a place of possibility and freedom. Their performances are equal parts small-town queer cabaret, ‘70s folk-rock rapture, and Bowie-ish extravaganza.

Their music crackles with John Prine’s rich storytelling and winking humor, Patti Smith’s punkish abandon and revelry, Haim and Taylor Swift’s melodic brilliance. Tiny Horse may be the only—and the last—of their kind.Along with celebrated appearances at Guelph’s renowned Hillside Festival and Mackinnon Brothers’ Back To The Farm, Tiny Horse have spent the last few years converting some of Ontario’s best music rooms—from the El Mocambo to the National Arts Centre to the sweaty depths of Kingston’s pubs—into places of celebration and light and the sort of weirdo genius that lives outside the crush of normative society. (After seeing the band live, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, the host of CBC’s Commotion, declared that Tiny Horse are “gonna be the next ones outta Kingston.”) 

Roberts’ electric charisma and wit gallop hand-in-hand with Corcoran’s gravity and poise, their voices giving way to one another at perfect moments, then meeting at once in Simon-and-Garfunkel-meets-Thelma-and-Louise harmony. Corcoran’s acoustic strumming and Roberts’ clean electric plucking meet with Beattie’s loose, folksy keys and Dolphin’s drums to build Tiny Horse’s sound, a sharp, rootsy indie rock that sounds like a breezy summer evening.