Band
on the Rise: Setting Sun
by
Peter Aaron
...and second guitarist quit Instead of throwing in the towel, however,
Levitt and the remaining bassist and drummer decided to hit
the road anyway, the three members learning to sing and playing
improvised music along the way—D.I.Y. to the core. Rechristened
The KFG, the trio moved to San Francisco in 1996, where Quitzow,
Levitt’s then-new girlfriend, soon followed.
The
band did well for a time on the Northern California scene
but eventually broke up, leaving Levitt and Quitzow to form
psychedelic pop outfit Heavy Pebble. The new group, with its
quirky sound and trippy film-projection backdrops, was another
hit in the San Francisco clubs, but it too came to an end
when several key members left. After twice being burned by
intra-band dynamics, Levitt knew what he had to do: start
his own project.
So
in 2001, Levitt sequestered himself in a friend’s apartment
with some borrowed gear and “two cheap microphones”
to record what was to become Setting Sun’s debut, the
appropriately titled Holed Up. Marked by a sense of palpable
urgency that betrays the shoot-from-the-hip conditions of
its creation, the album seamlessly fuses Levitt’s chief
references—warmly strummed acoustic guitar, bent Beatles/Bowie
pop, loud/quiet Pixies/Nirvana dynamics—into a catchy
and inversely intimate lo-fi blend. Levitt describes his sound
as having an “orchestral approach.” “Whenever
I’m writing or recording, I’m always hearing a
lot of different parts for songs,” he says. “Lots
of counter-melodies, different things for strings and keyboards
to do.”
Unfortunately,
it would be a little more time until the world at large would
get to hear the album. Before Levitt could plan Setting Sun’s
rise, he and Quitzow detoured to Los Angeles to play with
Inner, the brainchild of sometime Hudson Valley resident and
Natalie Merchant guitarist Jennifer Turner. Inner recorded
an album in London and toured...CONTINUE...
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