Setting / BASIC

Ars Nova Workshop presents the experimental drone trio Setting and the all-star Philadelphia unit Basic at Solar Myth on Thursday, April 18, 2024.

Setting is a newly-formed drone trio featuring members of Black Twig Pickers, Peeesseye and Megafaun: Nathan Bowles (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 (Califone, Sylvan Esso, Jake Xerxes Fussell) on drums, percussion, and metallophones. Mojo Magazine called their debut album, Shone a Rainbow Light On (Paradise of Bachelors), “a record that spectacularly reconciles micro-detailed improv with deep-listening ambience,” while Aquarium Drunkard compared it to “Fripp and Eno holed up in a mountain cabin looking for UFOs… a luminous slice of kosmische Appalachia that’s like scanning the horizon until you lose all separation between earth and sky.”

They’ll share a bill with BASIC, a Philly-born trio featuring Fennelly’s Peeesseye bandmate Chris Forsyth, fellow guitar prestidigitator Nick Millevoi, and Natural Information Society drummer Mikel Patrick Avery. A heady blend of acoustic and electronic textures, BASIC is inspired by the Robert Quine/Fred Maher record from which they cribbed their name and evocative of an imaginary electronic desert blues soundtrack.