Setting + High Alpine Hut Network + Shabason / Gunning

Event Details

Event type: Ages 19+

SETTING (bandcamp)

The North Carolina Piedmont-based trio of Setting bring together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative, explorative mindsets from groups such as Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Multi- instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund subvert expectations while creating a sense of ease and wonderment. Their intricate interplay of synthesizers, cassette loops, banjo, keyboards, electronics, zithers, and a litany of percussive instruments form a tactile amalgam of celestial transcendence and terrestrial rhythm, a loamy pulse fluidly guiding every minute fluctuation in feel. Dedicated improvisers with years working together, the band has developed their own idiosyncratic vernacular and sense of flow. Setting’s self-titled album (Thrill Jockey) is a definitive statement of their improvisational acumen meeting compositional rigor, a robust wellspring of hypnagogic grooves and mosaiced textures.  Setting harnesses the euphoria of communal creation.

HIGH ALPINE HUT NETWORK (bandcamp)

High Alpine Hut Network is a psychedelic fusion group based in Toronto, ON. The group has released 2 EP's & are currently working on their first full length album.

"We are an improvising band that focus’ on immediate connection. As individuals, we became stumped by our previous groups solely performing worked out arrangements & decided to form a project dedicated to intentional, non-judgemental improvisations. Our common goal is to honour the present moment & allow ourselves to change shape based on the mood of the members, the surroundings & the energy of the audience."

SHABASON / GUNNING (bandcamp)

Toronto dream-duo Joseph Shabason and Ben Gunning map fragmented cityscapes from bent electronics and late-night FM jazz transmissions.

The boys are back in town. After recording their debut in a remote cottage in Northern Ontario, the duo relocated their jams to Shabason’s Toronto studio where they gained unlimited access to a virtual cornucopia of analog and digital gear and had the time to really push those instruments to the brink. In the crisp autumnal sessions the duo consciously set out to make Ample Habitat with a fresh slate; not a single melody or patch was smuggled in on a USB stick. Fuelled with off-brand club soda, the ethos was to infuse the sessions and the music itself with a sense of discovery. Another perk of the new locale was being closer to friends and neighbours; TO music-scene luminaries Kieran Adams, Bram Gielen, and Thom Gill dropped in, rounding out a full jam band for the convivial B-side surprise “Is Jubilee.” Although the album calls on a wild menagerie of digital voices, the heart is warm and human, favouring performance and play over presets and quantization. If J Dilla was able to teach an MPC jazz, Shabason / Gunning aim to teach their hardware the ECM version.