New York State multi-instrumentalist artists Quitzow and Setting Sun are giving back to their fans by releasing new EPs at the very cost effective price of $0.00. Quitzow’s new EP Animal Nature presents five all-new songs (including “What Time Is It? [MP3]) written on the band’s Summer 2008 tour in support of its latest full-length Art College. Setting Sun’s new EP brings a new tune “They’re Calling” (MP3) in addition to four remixes from the group’s 2008 album release Children of The Wild. The new collection is appropriately titled Children of The Remix.Download promo copies of the new Quitzow and Setting Sun EPs with one easy click HERE.
Both Quitzow and Setting Sun are currently in the midst of a co-headlining European tour showcasing songs from the new EPs as well as both acts current full-length albums. The two groups share more than a label and tour dates: Quitzow, the namesake of songwriter/singer/multi-instrumentalist Erica Quitzow features Setting Sun songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Gary Levitt alternately adding bass, drums and vocals to its live shows. Likewise, the Levitt-led Setting Sun includes Erica Quitzow on violin and backing vocals.
Along with this kinship, both groups share an open interest in cross-breeding musical forms, merging classical strings (violin and cello especially), folk, chamber pop and hints of early electronic rock. The results are truly refreshing. Setting Sun has been compared to Merge artists The Radar Brothers, Elliott Smith at his darkest and early Nick Drake while Quitzow invites nods like “Solex meets Liz Phair” and “combining the fun of Peaches with the intelligence of Lori Anderson.”
More About Quitzow:
“Oh, words can’t express how much I adore this woman (full name: Erica Quitzow). If you dig Peaches, Le Tigre and early Liz Phair, she’ll be right up your alley. I want to be her roommate.” – USA Today
“Sexy makes its presence with seductive vocals over eerie keyboard sequencing. Quitzow’s latest work is baby-making music for a new generation.” – Remix Magazine
“Upstate New York singer songwriter Erica Quitzow gives her cello and Moog art whimsy a bubbly groove and defiant summer strut.” – SPIN
Animal Nature is the new EP from upstate New York via California songwriter Erica Quitzow. It consists of five songs created while touring in support of her previous full-length release, Art College. The songs were inspired and influenced by live performances and are thus an extension of the project. The songs were brought home as skeletons of samples and drum loops, each originally named after the state in which they were created. Erica added the Quitzow touch, creating a collection of pop tunes and dreamy sounds capes; its dancey digital elements warmed up with an organic analog feel provided by cello, violin, acoustic guitar, live percussion and Moog. Scroll down to continue or click HERE.
More About Setting Sun:
“Children of The Wild, evokes the laid-back simple life of Levitt’s upstate New York home. Driven by simple acoustic guitar lines, graceful string orchestrations, and Levitt’s hushed vocals, Setting Sun’s arrangements are dramatic and poignant.” – NPR’s Second Stage.
The new Setting Sun EP Children of The Remix is an experiment in song, sound and freedom. Beginning with another new catchy tune, “They’re Calling” (MP3), it bops along as it rolls through a cast of characters asked to rise to an occasion, whether it is facing your own fears or taking yourself out of your own comfort zone, this song is their stories. The rest of the EP has songs re-tooled from Children of The Wild. It is further out in a crossbreed of genres, resulting in a crossbreed of folk-electro-synth-singalong-indie-pop. The song “Carry me Away” is freshly recorded in a new meter from its original 6/8 to 4/4. The result is mind opening. The three remaining songs are electro-filled. By messing them up, deconstructing and reconstructing them it gave their creator a great sense of freedom and release. Removing fundamental elements and knob turning the remaining ones to oblivion while adding electronic drums and about a thousand keyboards reveals the fact that know matter how you serve them these are spectacular, well written songs. Scroll down to continue or click HERE.
Quitzow – Animal Nature Tracklisting:
Release Date: November 25th, 2008
01. What Time Is It? (MP3)
02. Float
03. In The Land of Science
04. New York Haunting
05. Animal Nature
Setting Sun – Children of The Remix Tracklisting:
Release Date: November 25th, 2008
01. They’re Calling (MP3)
02. How Long (Remix)
03. No Devil Me No More (Remix)
04. Carry Me Away (Remix)
05. Not Waste (Remix)
Quitzow & Setting Sun On Tour:
12/02 Castelfidardo, ITALY Soppalco
12/03 Milan, ITALY The Rocket
12/04 Roma, ITALY Traffic
12/05 Bari, ITALY Time Zones
12/06 Pescara, ITALY Mono Festival
12/07 Lucerne, SWITZERLAND Treibhaus
12/09 Luxembourg DGLIG
12/11 Valence, FRANCE Minstral Palace
12/13 Peer, BELGIUM De Wissel
12/14 Brussels, BELGIUM La Filature
Tools and Hi-Res Photos:
www.fanaticpromotion.com/rosterdetails.php?indexkey=1448 (Quitzow)
www.fanaticpromotion.com/rosterdetails.php?indexkey=1447 (Setting Sun)
On The Web:
www.myspace.com/quitzow
www.settingsun.cc
www.myspace.com/settingsun
www.youngloverecords.com
www.myspace.com/youngloverecords
Subscribe to Fanatic:
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More About Quitzow (continued):
Animal Nature is the new EP from upstate New York via California songwriter Erica Quitzow. It consists of five songs created while touring in support of her previous full-length release, Art College. The songs were inspired and influenced by live performances and are thus an extension of the project. The songs were brought home as skeletons of samples and drum loops, each originally named after the state in which they were created. Erica added the Quitzow touch, creating a collection of pop tunes and dreamy sounds capes; its dancey digital elements warmed up with an organic analog feel provided by cello, violin, acoustic guitar, live percussion and Moog.
Art College spent eight weeks on the CMJ charts and gained critical acclaim from national publications such as SPIN Magazine. The touring band, which consists of drums, bass, cello, Moog, Korg, and guitar, is a rotating cast of four to five members and continues to tour Art College. Songs from Animal Nature will show up in sets very soon! These new tunes will make their premieres during Quitzow’s European tour.
Animal Nature touches on themes of love, the music industry, spiritual ideology, and escapism. The uncertainty of the music industry and a challenge to “get it started” to the opportunities teasing the project are addressed in the first song, “What Time Is It (MP3),” as well as a more obvious plea to a love interest. Mortality, escapism, and addiction are explored in “Float” and “New York Haunting,” while “In The Land of Science” is an anthem for a Darwinian, materially based belief system. The title track reminds us to notice our animal emotions; fear, comfort, sexuality, and power, amidst the technology and heady culture we live in.
Quitzow hopes you enjoy these new songs and assures you the quirkiness herein is not an affectation, but a genuine extension of her personality. If you have your doubts, consider how relatively new an art form pop music is and thus how natural it seems to attempt to cross into uncharted territory. While a love for nostalgia is appreciated and accepted as occurring spontaneously, Quitzow has no interest in intentionally recreating a sound for its own sake.
Quitzow In The Press:
“Goddamn it I can’t describe it using conventional pigeonholing terminology; it’s just FUN. Do you know what FUN is? Art College is FUN” – Rum-Soaked Review
“Indie-pop crooner Erica Quitzow favors droll arrangements that mash up strings with hip-hop beats. Her mordant wit helps tie the weird mix together.” – Time Out New York
“…her approach to songwriting heavily reflects the collage aesthetic favored that the late-career Beatles.” – New York Press
“An accomplished instrumentalist, sonic collagist, and pop creative. Quitzow could prove to be an imagination to look out for.” – Bitch Magazine
“On her second one-woman band album, singer and multi-instrumentalist Erica Quitzow stakes out a triangulation point between the electroclash aggression of Peaches, the melodic richness and cross-genre fearlessness of the Magnetic Fields, and the disco-classical fusion of the late Arthur Russell.” – allmusic.com
“…throbbing Timbaland-style synth lines. Her greatest asset is her gift for writing strong, simple yet elegant hooks for strings.” – Fluxblog
“While rumbling Moog lines and old school-ish MPC beats fill out the low end, additional keyboards flutter on top, slipping in and out while rallying behind the driving melodies. Oh, and did I mention this is the carefully crafted (or possibly mad scientist influenced) output of a one-woman band?” – CDBABY, Editor’s Pick
“Erica Quitzow rocks the mic like an ethereal hybrid of Jeff Buckley, Siouxsie Sioux, and Toni Halliday.” – San Francisco Bay Guardian
“New York’s Quitzow uses a swill of humor and keyboard-based melodrama to illustrate the superficial and sometimes slaughterhouse rules with which people tend to curse one another. Alternately dreamy and debauched, always smart.” – Independent Weekly, Chapel Hill
More About Setting Sun (continued):
Inspired by great songs with memorable melodies, driving beats and inventive, honest sounds, the songs of Setting Sun are like a complete reinvigoration of a music scene suffering from its own irony, pastiche, and self-dramatization. Don’t let the name fool you — Gary Levitt’s evolving musical project is a motion of rising, a triumphant success that inspires drive, love, and enjoyment, even when it acknowledges life’s dejection.
Setting Sun is the name by which Gary Levitt expresses his current musical vision. Levitt has served a lifetime in music. Since putting his hands on a guitar, Levitt has pursued his subsistence by music alone—no easy task. Traveling and living back and forth on both sides of the country, Levitt has gained a musical education.
Half of Setting Sun is the good songwriting and clever arrangements. The other half is the technical wizardry Levitt has developed as a producer. Working out of various studios, he has worked with many bands and songwriters helping to craft their art. As a sideman he was signed to Virgin Records where he got the experience of recording with platinum producer Nellee Hooper (Bjork, Smashing Pumpkins, Massive Attack). Gary has lived and worked in San Francisco, LA, London and NY.
The third Setting Sun record Children of The Wild (released June, 2008) stayed in the Top 200 CMJ charts for eight weeks and landed many and mostly positive reviews. Its sound is a mix of acoustic instruments (cello, violin, guitar, drums) crossbred with synth and an occasional splash of electronics. Its sound was reported as “organic” and compared to Hunky Dory-era David Bowie, Scott Walker, Elliott Smith, and The Arcade Fire. Many of these songs are still spreading and just starting to catch people’s ears all over the world. They have been featured on NPR, the BBC and are being used for a feature film coming out in 2009.
The new Setting Sun EP Children of The Remix is an experiment in song, sound and freedom. Beginning with another new catchy tune, “They’re Calling” (MP3), it bops along as it rolls through a cast of characters asked to rise to an occasion, whether it is facing your own fears or taking yourself out of your own comfort zone, this song is their stories. The rest of the EP has songs re-tooled from Children of The Wild. It is further out in a crossbreed of genres, resulting in a crossbreed of folk-electro-synth-singalong-indie-pop. The song “Carry me Away” is freshly recorded in a new meter from its original 6/8 to 4/4. The result is mind opening. The three remaining songs are electro-filled. By messing them up, deconstructing and reconstructing them it gave their creator a great sense of freedom and release. Removing fundamental elements and knob turning the remaining ones to oblivion while adding electronic drums and about a thousand keyboards reveals the fact that know matter how you serve them these are spectacular, well written songs.
A veteran of the indie music scene, Levitt started as a member of feverish NY band The Kung-Fu Grip. After four years of relentless touring, they made their way out to San Francisco where they paired down their members to a tightly focused three piece, all providing vocals for their cathartic, shock art sound. Levitt simultaneously formed Heavy Pebble with Erica Quitzow, becoming a hit in the music scene in San Francisco and touring the west coast, playing their quirky pop songs with post-modernist film collage projections to crowded houses and critical acclaim. After various line-up changes and key members leaving, both groups disbanded.
Upon having these long-term projects fall apart leaving Levitt with no material to perform, he decided his next project would be solely his own. Levitt sequestered himself in a friend’s San Francisco 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, the album seamlessly fuses Levitt’s chief references—warm acoustic guitar, melodic counterpoint bent Beatles/Bowie pop, loud/quiet Pixies/Nirvana dynamics—into a catchy and inversely intimate lo-fi blend.
Young Love Records released Holed Up to many positive reviews coinciding with the group touring regularly, performing as a three-piece. Gary also embarked on two separate month-long solo tours, playing every night, often paired with daytime radio and college shows, and sleeping where he could. He eventually settled home and began writing and recording his sophomore CD Math and Magic.
Curious to hear Setting Sun’s potential with outside production assistance, Levitt embarked on the recording of his second album with producer Richard Chiu. With a different approach than the solo explorations of Holed Up, Math and Magic is more polished, produced, and collaborative than its lo-fi experimental predecessor. The intimacy of Holed Up is not lost, but perhaps served on a cleaner plate. Released on Young Love Records in 2005, songs “The Only One” and “Found It By Midnite” can be heard in the short film Paper Jam, which won several awards in the festival circuit including “Best Music”. Setting Sun has been getting increasing attention from the film and television industries. As more people get exposed many find the music to be a natural fit with the moving image.
Setting Sun In The Press:
“Setting Sun uses not only vintage psych and folk-rock as musical touchstones, but the melodramatic likes of Scott Walker and Hunky Dory-era David Bowie. Moods range, with the boyish charm of Levitt’s vocals and the inventive melodicism of his tunes tying the whole thing together.” – All Music Guide
“Here’s another band where I had an impossible time picking one song, since all of them are podcast-worthy. The new album, Children of The Wild has several incredibly well-crafted songs with a vocal that reminds me of Bright Eyes.” – USA Today
“Setting Sun creates an odd atmosphere, probed by twizzling sounds, and the feeling that this is the soundtrack for the aftermath of a crash landing.” – parasitesandsycophants
“These tunes have more hooks than a tackle box.” – Daily Freeman
“Pop with its edgily tense cortege of suspense straining strings.” – Losing Today
“A feeling of loss and longing permeates the music; even songs that may sound happy on the surface are shot through with dark splinters and devastating insights.” – East Bay Express
“On a superficial level, the listener might assume this is an album brimming with morose lyrics, but the songs feel infectiously hopeful without being too sweet.” –Feminist Review
“For this third album to date, Levitt has assembled an impressively wide array of experience to produce a sound that fulfills all expectations that were provided by the potential of his first two albums.” – Obscure Sound
“In the vein of a modern classic like Bright Eyes, Levitt’s unrivaled pop sensibilities make for meticulously crafted songs on both ends of the emotional spectrum. This is definitely an album to own.” – Pop Wreckoning
“There’s a little Bowie in there, and some Elliott Smith, but who cares about comparisons? Setting Sun writes and plays great songs.” – New Times
“It kind of made me feel like I was 15 again and listening to a new Sub Pop band.” – Impact Press
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More About Quitzow (continued):
Animal Nature is the new EP from upstate New York via California songwriter Erica Quitzow. It consists of five songs created while touring in support of her previous full-length release, Art College. The songs were inspired and influenced by live performances and are thus an extension of the project. The songs were brought home as skeletons of samples and drum loops, each originally named after the state in which they were created. Erica added the Quitzow touch, creating a collection of pop tunes and dreamy sounds capes; its dancey digital elements warmed up with an organic analog feel provided by cello, violin, acoustic guitar, live percussion and Moog.
Art College spent eight weeks on the CMJ charts and gained critical acclaim from national publications such as SPIN Magazine. The touring band, which consists of drums, bass, cello, Moog, Korg, and guitar, is a rotating cast of four to five members and continues to tour Art College. Songs from Animal Nature will show up in sets very soon! These new tunes will make their premieres during Quitzow’s European tour.
Animal Nature touches on themes of love, the music industry, spiritual ideology, and escapism. The uncertainty of the music industry and a challenge to “get it started” to the opportunities teasing the project are addressed in the first song, “What Time Is It (MP3),” as well as a more obvious plea to a love interest. Mortality, escapism, and addiction are explored in “Float” and “New York Haunting,” while “In The Land of Science” is an anthem for a Darwinian, materially based belief system. The title track reminds us to notice our animal emotions; fear, comfort, sexuality, and power, amidst the technology and heady culture we live in.
Quitzow hopes you enjoy these new songs and assures you the quirkiness herein is not an affectation, but a genuine extension of her personality. If you have your doubts, consider how relatively new an art form pop music is and thus how natural it seems to attempt to cross into uncharted territory. While a love for nostalgia is appreciated and accepted as occurring spontaneously, Quitzow has no interest in intentionally recreating a sound for its own sake.
Quitzow In The Press:
“Goddamn it I can’t describe it using conventional pigeonholing terminology; it’s just FUN. Do you know what FUN is? Art College is FUN” – Rum-Soaked Review
“Indie-pop crooner Erica Quitzow favors droll arrangements that mash up strings with hip-hop beats. Her mordant wit helps tie the weird mix together.” – Time Out New York
“…her approach to songwriting heavily reflects the collage aesthetic favored that the late-career Beatles.” – New York Press
“An accomplished instrumentalist, sonic collagist, and pop creative. Quitzow could prove to be an imagination to look out for.” – Bitch Magazine
“On her second one-woman band album, singer and multi-instrumentalist Erica Quitzow stakes out a triangulation point between the electroclash aggression of Peaches, the melodic richness and cross-genre fearlessness of the Magnetic Fields, and the disco-classical fusion of the late Arthur Russell.” – allmusic.com
“…throbbing Timbaland-style synth lines. Her greatest asset is her gift for writing strong, simple yet elegant hooks for strings.” – Fluxblog
“While rumbling Moog lines and old school-ish MPC beats fill out the low end, additional keyboards flutter on top, slipping in and out while rallying behind the driving melodies. Oh, and did I mention this is the carefully crafted (or possibly mad scientist influenced) output of a one-woman band?” – CDBABY, Editor’s Pick
“Erica Quitzow rocks the mic like an ethereal hybrid of Jeff Buckley, Siouxsie Sioux, and Toni Halliday.” – San Francisco Bay Guardian
“New York’s Quitzow uses a swill of humor and keyboard-based melodrama to illustrate the superficial and sometimes slaughterhouse rules with which people tend to curse one another. Alternately dreamy and debauched, always smart.” – Independent Weekly, Chapel Hill
More About Setting Sun (continued):
Inspired by great songs with memorable melodies, driving beats and inventive, honest sounds, the songs of Setting Sun are like a complete reinvigoration of a music scene suffering from its own irony, pastiche, and self-dramatization. Don’t let the name fool you — Gary Levitt’s evolving musical project is a motion of rising, a triumphant success that inspires drive, love, and enjoyment, even when it acknowledges life’s dejection.
Setting Sun is the name by which Gary Levitt expresses his current musical vision. Levitt has served a lifetime in music. Since putting his hands on a guitar, Levitt has pursued his subsistence by music alone—no easy task. Traveling and living back and forth on both sides of the country, Levitt has gained a musical education.
Half of Setting Sun is the good songwriting and clever arrangements. The other half is the technical wizardry Levitt has developed as a producer. Working out of various studios, he has worked with many bands and songwriters helping to craft their art. As a sideman he was signed to Virgin Records where he got the experience of recording with platinum producer Nellee Hooper (Bjork, Smashing Pumpkins, Massive Attack). Gary has lived and worked in San Francisco, LA, London and NY.
The third Setting Sun record Children of The Wild (released June, 2008) stayed in the Top 200 CMJ charts for eight weeks and landed many and mostly positive reviews. Its sound is a mix of acoustic instruments (cello, violin, guitar, drums) crossbred with synth and an occasional splash of electronics. Its sound was reported as “organic” and compared to Hunky Dory-era David Bowie, Scott Walker, Elliott Smith, and The Arcade Fire. Many of these songs are still spreading and just starting to catch people’s ears all over the world. They have been featured on NPR, the BBC and are being used for a feature film coming out in 2009.
The new Setting Sun EP Children of The Remix is an experiment in song, sound and freedom. Beginning with another new catchy tune, “They’re Calling” (MP3), it bops along as it rolls through a cast of characters asked to rise to an occasion, whether it is facing your own fears or taking yourself out of your own comfort zone, this song is their stories. The rest of the EP has songs re-tooled from Children of The Wild. It is further out in a crossbreed of genres, resulting in a crossbreed of folk-electro-synth-singalong-indie-pop. The song “Carry me Away” is freshly recorded in a new meter from its original 6/8 to 4/4. The result is mind opening. The three remaining songs are electro-filled. By messing them up, deconstructing and reconstructing them it gave their creator a great sense of freedom and release. Removing fundamental elements and knob turning the remaining ones to oblivion while adding electronic drums and about a thousand keyboards reveals the fact that know matter how you serve them these are spectacular, well written songs.
A veteran of the indie music scene, Levitt started as a member of feverish NY band The Kung-Fu Grip. After four years of relentless touring, they made their way out to San Francisco where they paired down their members to a tightly focused three piece, all providing vocals for their cathartic, shock art sound. Levitt simultaneously formed Heavy Pebble with Erica Quitzow, becoming a hit in the music scene in San Francisco and touring the west coast, playing their quirky pop songs with post-modernist film collage projections to crowded houses and critical acclaim. After various line-up changes and key members leaving, both groups disbanded.
Upon having these long-term projects fall apart leaving Levitt with no material to perform, he decided his next project would be solely his own. Levitt sequestered himself in a friend’s San Francisco 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, the album seamlessly fuses Levitt’s chief references—warm acoustic guitar, melodic counterpoint bent Beatles/Bowie pop, loud/quiet Pixies/Nirvana dynamics—into a catchy and inversely intimate lo-fi blend.
Young Love Records released Holed Up to many positive reviews coinciding with the group touring regularly, performing as a three-piece. Gary also embarked on two separate month-long solo tours, playing every night, often paired with daytime radio and college shows, and sleeping where he could. He eventually settled home and began writing and recording his sophomore CD Math and Magic.
Curious to hear Setting Sun’s potential with outside production assistance, Levitt embarked on the recording of his second album with producer Richard Chiu. With a different approach than the solo explorations of Holed Up, Math and Magic is more polished, produced, and collaborative than its lo-fi experimental predecessor. The intimacy of Holed Up is not lost, but perhaps served on a cleaner plate. Released on Young Love Records in 2005, songs “The Only One” and “Found It By Midnite” can be heard in the short film Paper Jam, which won several awards in the festival circuit including “Best Music”. Setting Sun has been getting increasing attention from the film and television industries. As more people get exposed many find the music to be a natural fit with the moving image.
Setting Sun In The Press:
“Setting Sun uses not only vintage psych and folk-rock as musical touchstones, but the melodramatic likes of Scott Walker and Hunky Dory-era David Bowie. Moods range, with the boyish charm of Levitt’s vocals and the inventive melodicism of his tunes tying the whole thing together.” – All Music Guide
“Here’s another band where I had an impossible time picking one song, since all of them are podcast-worthy. The new album, Children of The Wild has several incredibly well-crafted songs with a vocal that reminds me of Bright Eyes.” – USA Today
“Setting Sun creates an odd atmosphere, probed by twizzling sounds, and the feeling that this is the soundtrack for the aftermath of a crash landing.” – parasitesandsycophants
“These tunes have more hooks than a tackle box.” – Daily Freeman
“Pop with its edgily tense cortege of suspense straining strings.” – Losing Today
“A feeling of loss and longing permeates the music; even songs that may sound happy on the surface are shot through with dark splinters and devastating insights.” – East Bay Express
“On a superficial level, the listener might assume this is an album brimming with morose lyrics, but the songs feel infectiously hopeful without being too sweet.” –Feminist Review
“For this third album to date, Levitt has assembled an impressively wide array of experience to produce a sound that fulfills all expectations that were provided by the potential of his first two albums.” – Obscure Sound
“In the vein of a modern classic like Bright Eyes, Levitt’s unrivaled pop sensibilities make for meticulously crafted songs on both ends of the emotional spectrum. This is definitely an album to own.” – Pop Wreckoning
“There’s a little Bowie in there, and some Elliott Smith, but who cares about comparisons? Setting Sun writes and plays great songs.” – New Times
“It kind of made me feel like I was 15 again and listening to a new Sub Pop band.” – Impact Press
