User:AlexanderGibbs1982/sandbox

Background information

Birth name		Joshua Gibbs Born			24 September 1988 (age 30) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Genres			Ambient, indie pop, shoegaze Occupation(s)		Musician, singer-songwriter Instruments		Guitar, bass, vocals, production,  Years active		2012-present Label			Feral Media Associated acts		Olafur Arnalds, FourPlay

Setec is the pseudonym of solo musical artist Joshua Gibbs (born 24 September 1988). The name “Setec” is a reference to a fictional organisation mentioned in the 1992 film Sneakers. Setec has released two albums and one EP independently. Featured in the Triple J Unearthed project, he is described as a “multi-instrumentalist and bedroom recordist … Mixing field recordings, acoustic instruments and a plethora of long-forgotten spoken and sung samples” (1).

Career

Setec’s first official release, I’ll Be Good EP, was released on 1 August 2012 and contained four tracks (2). Writing about one track, “Longer Letters” (released in February that year), Portals Music said, “Setec will bring out all the things that haunt you. It’ll twist knots in your stomach and run loops through your mind.” (3)

Setec’s first full length album, Brittle as Bones, was released on 18 August 2014. The album was officially launched at a public event at the FBi Social at the Kings Cross Hotel, hosted by Sydney’s FBi Radio, on 4 September 2014. (4) The album received strong reviews, with Brendan Telford of The Music describing it as “one of the most accomplished and assured releases this reviewer has heard for some time” (5), making special mention of main single “Water or Concrete”, which he regarded as “a breathing, naturalistic wonder” (5). The Semplesize music blog described the album as “a stellar debut” (6). A music video was also released for “Water or Concrete” on YouTube (7).

Setec’s next release, via Soundcloud’s Ears Have Ears project, was a track named “Jersey Street”, a nostalgic piece which mixed acoustic guitar, ukulele and field recordings with an electric guitar “processed … through digital reverb units and equalisers until I could barely recognise the instrument” (7).

Setec was highlighted in 2015 by The AU Review’s list of emerging Sydney artists, his music described as “luscious, textural soundscapes topped with delicate vocals” (8).

On 6 April 2018, Setec’s second album, Atrial Flutters, or Raise Yr Hand if Yr Afraid, was officially launched at Sydney’s Gaelic Club (the album was released on 23 March). The release details described the album as “Setec’s most assured statement to date … utilising found-sound percussion alongside looped acoustic instruments, crackling samples and cascading layers of his own voice, this is modern music sprinkled with fleeting flickers of the past” (9).

The new album contained several contributions by Tim Hollo of Sydney string quartet FourPlay, and also included such diverse instruments as melodica, upright bass and glockenspiel (10). Field recordings on the track “Bethesda Fountain” were recorded at the fountain of the same name in New York City’s Central Park. The album’s opening track, “Wasted Parted”, was featured on Tim Shiel’s Triple J radio show “Something More” on 22 April 2018 (11).

The album once again received strong reviews: Sydney radio station 2SER commented, “There is a lot going on here at times, but Setec possesses the ability to make everything work together perfectly” (12), while hhhhappy described it as “incredibly carefully considered, and through its duration [it] manages to be both heartwarming and devastatingly heartbreaking” (10). Two singles taken from the album, “Loose Leaves” and “Tying Tourniquets”, both received positive user reviews on the Triple J Unearthed website (13).