SETTING











“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 Live


Oct 26 - Saxapahaw, NC - Sleepy Fest - tix
Oct 30 - Asheville, NC - AyurPrana Listening w/ Superflower Room - tix
Oct 31 - Louisville, KY - B-Side w/ Jungle Boogie + Seethings
Nov 1 - Chicago, IL - Judson & Moore w/ Whitney Johnson & Lia Kohl - tix
Nov 2 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club w/ Taffy Puller - tix
Nov 3 - Winona, WI - No Name Bar w/ upup/OVER
Nov 4 - Minneapolis, MN - Icehouse w/ Alpha Consumer - tix
Nov 5 - Sturgeon Bay, WI - MUSE Sturgeon Bay - tix
Nov 7 - Lexington, KY - Singletary Center for the Arts - Expansive Sounds Series - tix




PAST Live


Aug 10 - Minneapolis, MN - TGNP Party 2024 -Icehouse
June 15 - Boone, NC - Boonerang Fest
June 14 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Back Room w/ Verity Den
June 7 - Asheville, NC - Eulogy w/ Avey Tare, Circuit des Yeux
June 6 - Atlanta, GA - 529 w/ Anagrams
June 5 - Charlotte, NC - Tabor w/ Bill MacKay
May 6 - Ojai, CA  - Kim Maxwell Studio w/ Tara Jane O’Neil

May 5 - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon w/ Jeff Parker
May 4 - Santa Cruz, CA - Indexical w/ Zekarias Thompson
May 3 - San Francisco, CA - The Lab w/ Chuck Johnson & Cole Pulice
May 2 - Davis, CA - Delta of Venus w/ San Kazakgascar
May 1 - San Anselmo, CA - Private house show 
April 30 - Arcata, CA - The Miniplex
April 21 - E. Providence, RI - The Myrtle w/ Lake of Field
April 20 - Westfield, MA - Hutghi’s w/ Junk Orbit and Willie Lane
April 19 - Brooklyn, NY - Public Records w/ BASIC
April 18 - Philadelphia, PA - Solar Myth w/ BASIC
April 17 - Richmond, VA - OSB w/ Matthew Rolin
Dec 17, 2023 - Asheville, NC - Eulogy w/ Wind Cults
Dec 14, 2023 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Back Room w/ Holy Sons
Oct 26, 2023 - Asheville, NC - Black Mountain College Museum w/ Sally Anne Morgan
Oct 7, 2023 - Durham, NC - FEAST
Sept 24, 2023 - Bloomington, IN  - The Bishop #
# w/ Califone
Sept 23, 2023 - Detroit, MI - Lager House #
Sept 22, 2023 - Berwyn, IL - Fitzgeralds #
Sept 20, 2023 - Minneapolis, MN - Turf Club #
Sept 19, 2023 - Soldier’s Grove, WI - Red Clover Ranch #
Sept 18, 2023 - Milwaukee, WI - Shank Hall #
Sept 17, 2023 - Louisville, KY - w/ SmithSmith
Sept 9, 2023 - Raleigh, NC - Hopscotch Festival
Sept 1, 2023 - Hillsborough, NC - On the Eno River - “Setting Sounds #2”
July 6 - Durham, NC - Perfect Lovers - “Setting Sounds #1”
April 5, 2023 - Durham, NC - Shadowbox w/ Jon Mueller
December 1, 2022 - Durham, NC - Duke Coffeehouse w/ Che Chen & Patrick Shiroishi, Nora Rogers


   


Setting

Setting is Nathan Bowles (solo/trio, Pelt, Black Twig Pickers) on strings, keys, tapes, and percussion; Jaime Fennelly (Mind Over Mirrors, Peeesseye) on harmoniums, synthesizers, and piano zither; and Joe Westerlund (solo, Califone, Sylvan Esso, Jake Xerxes Fussell) on drums, percussion, and metallophones.
 
Setting established its own setting and found its footing in regularly scheduled improvisational sessions outside Westerlund’s home in Durham, North Carolina, beginning in 2021. The three players began as two, in the context of occasional Bowles and Westerlund percussion duo performances dating back to 2018. Fennelly provided the initial impetus to gather and play together with intentionality and discipline, as well as an harmonic adhesive and thickening agent in the grain and gravity of his harmonium and synthesizer. As always, Bowles’s background as a pianist and drummer informs his approach to banjo, imparting a woodiness, a piney verticality and resinous tang. Westerlund’s training with Milford Graves is apparent in his polyrhythmic flow and its correspondences to human circulatory and corporeal rhythms.

They recorded their collective discoveries on their debut album “Shone a Rainbow Light On” (Paradise of Bachelors), which Uncut gave a "9/10" and Mojo Magazine listed as #3 of Underground Records of 2023, calling it “a record that spectacularly reconciles micro-detailed improv with deep-listening ambience.”  

More info here.

contact: settingsettingsettingsetting@gmail.com

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