On their self-titled album (and their first recordings for the Thrill Jockey label) North Carolina group Setting takes rustic acoustic sounds into deep space, sitting around a cosmic campfire and creating a group sound that’s naturalistically beautiful and mysterious. The trio of Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly, and Joe Westerlund work in both improvisation and composition with stringed instruments, synthesizers, and percussion, landing in a place that’s partially informed by traditional Appalachia, part droning fields of synthesis, and part meditative Krautrock repetition. All of these aspects of Setting’s sound are in play on the album’s opening track “Heard a Bubble.” The nearly nine-minute piece opens with a lonely banjo line, and is quickly joined…
Tag Archive: Setting
This release from instrumental drone trio Setting (Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly and Joseph Westerlund) sees them complete a trio of live albums before they drop their second studio effort next year. at Public Records was recorded last spring when the band descended on Brooklyn to play a bill with Philadelphia band BASIC (previous Setting live albums at Eulogy and at Black Mountain College Museum were recorded in the band’s home state of North Carolina).
In a sense, this set plays out as more of a sibling piece to Eulogy than Black Mountain, with a darker and more urgent feel in places than the latter. After an edgy start, combining percussion that sounds like ghosts in the attic with eerie beeps and an insidious, undulating drone…