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from Saddle Creek: After Azure Ray disbanded in 2004, Orenda Fink, one half of the beloved Omaha-via-Athens duo, put her energies into a solo record. In 2005, she released Invisible Ones, an under-the-radar but critically-acclaimed debut album.
Through the Invisible Ones touring cycle, Orenda assembled several different touring bands with revolving members, along the way making profound musical and personal friendships with her bandmates. With a little astrological nudge and some serendipitous circumstances, Orenda decided to form a new band using the cream of the crop of her touring crew. The band they formed was called Art Belle. Fearing the wrath of paranoid radio listeners "West of the Rockies" (in addition to fearing litigation), the band shortly changed its name to Art in Manila, a nod to radio host Art Bell's exodus to the Phillipines. Art in Manila is comprised of Orenda on guitar and vocals, Adrianne Verhoeven on keys and vocals, Dan McCarthy also on keys, Steve Bartolomei on guitar, Ryan Fox on bass guitar, and Corey Broman on drums. Band members play or have played in... Mayday, McCarthy Trenching, The Anniversary, The Good Life, Mal Madrigal, Bright Eyes, Little Brazil, Dance Me Pregnant, Neva Dinova, and plenty of other groups both recognizable and not.
When writing tracks for Set the Woods on Fire, Orenda's writing process was informed by the possibilities and potential of working with a live band again. She could now write songs with each of the Art in Manila member's strengths in mind. At times, Art in Manila travels the lush path set forth by her previous work, however, it is here subsumed with edge and backbone. The band flirts playfully with genre wanderlust without ever abandoning cohesion. Moody slow-burners follow four-to-the-floor rockers which butt up against serene ballads. And it all works. Orenda and company have deviated from their collective musical pasts without forsaking it… and have conjured a powerful debut record in the process.
Set the Woods on Fire, Art in Manila's debut album, was recorded in Omaha, Nebraska, by Joel Petersen (The Faint, Broken Spindles) and mixed in Athens, Georgia, with longtime Orenda Fink collaborator Andy LeMaster (Now It's Overhead).
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