''Set and Setting'' is the fourth album by the American

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

group Bardo Pond. It was released on August 10, 1999 on Matador Records. The album's title comes from the writings of Timothy Leary.

Reception

The critical reception to ''Set and Setting'' was quite positive. ''

Head Heritage Julian David Cope (born 21 October 1957) is an English musician and author. He was the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes and has followed a solo career since 1983 in addition to working on musical side proj ...

'' praised the album, describing it as a combination of "

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...

, My Bloody Valentine and smoking a bag of something interesting." "While their last two records have been more concerned with sonic crunch than actual songwriting," wrote Sean Palmerston for ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'', "this time around it seems that Bardo Pond has got it all right. Basing song structures in heavy blues riffs (the natural beginning to the psychedelic movement anyway), the band moves away from confusing swirls of 1996’s Lapsed icand streamlines their direction into more direct, harder-hitting songs. ..Just don’t expect them to be touring with

Fat Possum In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple e ...

bands anytime soon – for my money, they’re still the closest thing left to real stoner rock since Sleep split up." '' CMJ New Music'' wrote that the album "rightly positions Bardo Pond among today's

space-rock Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drumming ...

luminaries, but it also sees the band on a different course from some of its drone-rock colleagues ..Where bands like Flying Saucer Attack work a decidedly celestial groove, as Bardo Pond has evolved, its grooves have become more scuzzy, vaguely blues-inspired and covered with a sticky layer of big-city grime, creosote and resin. It's space-rock at its stoned and sludgy best." Despite a mixed score, AllMusic's Matt Kantor gave the album a very positive review, writing that " e

cilia The cilium, plural cilia (), is a membrane-bound organelle found on most types of eukaryotic cell, and certain microorganisms known as ciliates. Cilia are absent in bacteria and archaea. The cilium has the shape of a slender threadlike projecti ...

-pulling strains of Set and Setting become utterly more infectious with each new spin ..The band is at their most effective on instrumental cuts like "Datura" and the violin-based "Cross Current." Here, sounds get their most stretched out and visual. On the whole,

he album He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

is another cohesive step forward, a slow parade of seductive experimentation and noise that crawls on rock's foundation and doesn't care what anyone thinks. ..Imagine then,

strewn across the desert on blotter acid; Set and Setting probably sounds something like that."

Track listing

#"Walking Stick Man" – 11:01 #"This Time (So Fucked)" – 4:00 #"Datura" – 8:02 #"Again" – 6:33 #"Lull" – 2:16 #"Cross Current" – 6:36 #"Crawl Away" – 9:26 #"#3" – 1:14

Personnel

* Isobel Sollenberger – Violin, Vocals * John Gibbons – Synthesizer, Guitar, Percussion, Feedback * Michael Gibbons – Synthesizer, Guitar, Producer * Clint Takeda – Bass, Snake Guitar * Ed Farnsworth – Drums (tracks 1, 3) * Joe Culver – Drums (tracks 2, 4–8) ;Additional personnel * Dan Wittels – Harmonica (track 1) * Jim Salamone – Mastering

References

1999 albums Bardo Pond albums Matador Records albums {{1990s-alt-rock-album-stub