Darkly personal and aurally powerful. Quietly emphatic, biting and shrewd. Warm, with a novel sound that manages to be tuneful and full of melody backed by lovely ethereal (and sometimes experimental) instrumentation; cello, guitar, bass, keys, drums.

12 MP3 Songs
POP: Beatles-pop, ROCK: Emo



Details:
August 1, 2002
Willamette Weekly (Portland)
Setting Sun
With his voice a biting whisper and guitar work that's
quietly emphatic and shrewd as it picks its way around
the fretboard, Setting Sun's Gary Levitt has more than
a little Elliott Smith in him. We're talking old
Elliott Smith here, i.e., the sad, intimate and cloudy
days of Roman Candle, not the overblown rainbow
Beatle-isms of today. Perhaps ironically, Levitt grew
up in New York City and now lives in Los Angeles...so
perhaps if Portland gives him a warm enough welcome, he'll move here and it'll be like reclaiming a lost Portland son. Or, perhaps more appropriately, Sun.
(JG)

May and June 2003
Punk Planet
Setting Sun - holed up
The songs on Setting Sun' debut album, Holed Up, are darkly personal and aurally powerful. Yet they are also warm, with a novel sound that manages to be tuneful and pretty against quiet-to-loud dynamics. These odd anti-folk-rock ballads are all about unexpected minor chord progressions, backed by lovely ethereal (and sometimes experimental) instrumentation that fills out and lends a contradictory polish to th albums roughened sounds. There's cello and vox besides guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. Pretty consistent across it's 12 interesting tracks, the album was self-produced and self-released by multi-instrumentalist Gary Levitt. It sounds as though it has label money behind it, but it doesn't. It's a very strong debut--and a keeper. (JS)

July 18, 2002
New Times
There's a little Bowie in there, and some Elliot Smith, but who cares about comparisons? Setting Sun writes and plays great songs like "The Only One": You're the only one I had to be there for, there's an absence and a spark that I just cannot ignore." -Glenn Starkey