Setting

SETTING

“at Public Records”

Released Sept 5, 2025

order: Digital (Bandcamp)

The third live report from Setting, ‘at Public Records,’ finds the trio outside their home state of North Carolina and inside the hearts and minds of the New Yorkers who choose to keep their ears to the dirt.

Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp, Sept ‘25

“...cycles through modes that hint at the uncanny and the sublime and conjure up spectral visions that make you question everything in your surroundings” - Aquarium Drunkard 2025 Year in Review

“at Eulogy”

Released Sept 6, 2024

order: Cassette / Digital (Bandcamp)

A second live report from Western North Carolina: the smoldering, incandescent ‘at Eulogy’ finds Setting returning to Asheville after a run of performances up and down both coasts. Returning sun-baked and wind-worn, their performance here crackles with vitality, glowing with an inner light both photosynthetic and magmatic. Where ‘at Black Mountain College Museum’ floated and weaved aloft the mountain thermals, ‘at Eulogy’ chooses to stalk the underbrush, eyes aglow and limbs akimbo. Captured with multi-track clarity and mixed for maximum impact, ‘at Eulogy’ presents a deep focus, saturated snapshot of Setting’s specific brand of limbic dynamism while also suggesting neural pathways forward for their next studio LP.

Bandcamp Album of the Day

“at Black Mountain College Museum”

Released Dec 1, 2023

order: Digital

Following a string of dates across the Midwest, from a low-slung backyard in Louisville to the Driftless hills of Wisconsin, this recording finds us responding to what seems to be an unanswered question posed by those previous performances: which criteria of group improvisation connote forward movement? Or maybe: which elements are born of this moment, and which are the fruits of previous plantings? Distinctions irrelevant in the playing become something else upon listening – a flowing out from and also back into. A coursing. Waves churned from the pebbled underneath: rising, crashing, dissipating, but all of one body. What need to ask whether waves move forward? Or if they move at all?

Shone A Rainbow Light On

Released Sept 29, 2023
(Paradise of Bachelors)

order:
Digital / Physical

“Like Fripp and Eno holed up in a mountain cabin looking for UFOs, Setting’s debut is a luminous slice of kosmische Appalachia that’s like scanning the horizon until you lose all separation between earth and sky.”
– Aquarium Drunkard 2023 Year in Review

FUTURE

March 28, 2026 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival - tix
June 25, 2026 - TBA
June 26-28, 2026 - Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival @ MASS MoCA - tix
July 29 - Aug 2, 2026 - TBA

PAST

Setting is Nathan Bowles (solo/trio, Pelt, Black Twig Pickers) on strings, keys, tapes, and percussion; Jaime Fennelly (Mind Over Mirrors, Peeesseye) on synthesizers and harmonium; and Joe Westerlund (solo, Califone, Sylvan Esso, Jake Xerxes Fussell) on drums, percussion, metallophones, and zither. After the release of their acclaimed debut LP ’Shone a Rainbow Light On,’ (Paradise of Bachelors) a record borne of performances in private rather than in public, Setting honed their group approach to improvisation and arrangement via a string of dates up and down both U.S. coasts. These developments were documented via a couple of live reports, both from Asheville NC (‘at Black Mountain College Museum’ and ‘at Eulogy’) but recorded 9 months apart, each indicating a continued honing of methods and direction. Further rehearsals to develop these ideas, including Fennelly’s incorporation of more programmed synthesizer material into the Bowles/Westerlund octopus polyrhythm, took that direction and paved the way for the sessions that are producing their 2nd forthcoming LP (Thrill Jockey): a clear evolution of their group voice and a reassertion of their performative ethos in the wake of the on-stage dynamism developed over these past two years.

(photo by Graham Tolbert; drawings by Field of Grass)

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