Raised in upstate New York and now based in San Francisco, singer/songwriter Gary Levitt has a solid take on the balance between rural naif and urban hipster that's at the root of the current alt-folk scene, but for all the acoustic guitars and simple musical settings of the third Setting Sun album, he's no Devendra Banhart type of modern flower child. Levitt (who basically is the Setting Sun, although Erica Quitzow, co-owner of the Young Love label and Levitt's partner, adds cello, violin, drums, and vocals) has far more in common with Destroyer's Dan Bejar: the 11 songs on Children of the Wild use not only vintage psych and folk-rock as musical touchstones, but the melodramatic likes of Scott Walker and Hunky Dory-era David Bowie, as well as sophisticated '80s college rockers like Prefab Sprout and the Go-Betweens. Moods range from the giddy, strummy pop rush of "Overjoyed" to the whispered tension of "Not Waste," with room for the folkish delicacy of "Morning Song" as well as the trippy edge of the Beck-like single "No Devil Me No More," with the boyish charm of Levitt's vocals and the inventive melodicism of his tunes tying the whole thing together. Children of the Wild may not fit easily into any currently fashionable genre descriptors, but it's definitely worth a listen.
© Stewart Mason /TiVo