Spanish singer-songwriter and musician Elena Setien has released a new album called Unfamiliar Minds which is out now via Thrill Jockey Records. According to the press release, it is a vast expansion of Setién’s unique sound world, capturing ineffable feelings in radiant detail. According to the press release, On Unfamiliar Minds, Setién reflects on isolation, confusion and harnesses uncertainty with optimism on ten ghostly wonders that capture ineffable feelings in radiant detail.
After completing her Basque language album Mirande in collaboration with composer Xabier Erikizia (released on Forbidden Colors in October of 2020), Setién began composing Unfamiliar Minds during the height of lockdown, starting with songs she had begun in pre-pandemic times. As days turned to months Setién grew disconnected from the incomplete pieces made in a different reality. The paralyzing tension of those disorienting early months eventually gave way to new inspiration. Romantic poetry by Emily Dickinson served as a refuge and a springboard for Setién to ground herself in writing new songs in English. She drew inspiration from conversations with composers Gyan and Terry Riley as well as her collaboration with Xabier Erkizia for the Basque television series Altsasu. Erkizia and Setién extended their remote collaborations beyond the series as the two began focusing on their own reconfigured sense of mood and perspective after a year of so much pain and drastic change.
As our environments became smaller and smaller, details within became more significant: we experienced more fully the beauty of birds, the smells from the kitchen and the joy in even the smallest taste of companionship. Setien replicated this phenomenon beautifully in her writing and the resulting songs are at once personal, lush, and elegantly detailed. Dulcet keyboards, otherworldly strings and rippling electronics echo and reverberate in enchanting cascades that become environments unto themselves. Setién’s direct, resonant voice brings a striking intimacy to the celestial arrangements from the crackle of her whisper to the weightless glide of her lilt.
Listen below and check our chat with the artist.