Greg Freeman's 'All Set The Bone' Is a Gloriously Unhinged Masterpiece of Live-Room Nerve
Greg Freeman has been the kind of artist critics describe as “quietly” something — quietly devastating, quietly literary. All Set The Bone is not quiet. It is his third album, it runs thirteen tracks, and it was made the hard way: mostly tracked live, with John Congleton producing at his Los Angeles studio. Freeman has said the closer came together with about ten people in a room playing into three or four microphones. You can hear that arithmetic.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: The rhythm section is a genuine band rather than a session hire — Garrett Linck on bass, Joey Sullivan of Florry on drums — and cutting live means the low end moves with the room instead of being bolted on afterward. On “Totaled,” a car-crash song, Stereogum’s Danielle Chelosky found the guitars flatly “nasty,” which is not a word anyone had previously needed for a Greg Freeman record.
The Spatial Dynamics: This is where live tracking earns its keep. “Culture” rides staccato riffs until, per Chelosky, “the guitars mutate into one big tidal wave,” horns dancing over the top. “Untitled 10” charges forward and then simply stops caring, dissolving into minutes of meandering quiet. Carney Hemler of The Rockin Worms adds second guitar, Sam Atallah multi-instruments, and Anna McClellan and Trinity Ace supply harmonies with actual air around them.
Standout Performance
Congleton. Choosing to capture a band in a room — rather than assembling one — is the decision the whole record rests on, and it’s why the loud parts sound hazardous instead of merely loud.
Why It’s Certified
Record Collector called it “widescreen Americana-founded experiential rock” and handed it a perfect score. Far Out gave it 4.5 out of 5 for “brazen idiosyncrasies, kinetic explosions.” Paste put it simplest: “it feels alive.” Stereogum made it Album of the Week and said the record “establishes Freeman as one of the most magnetic forces in indie rock right now.” Three albums in, that’s no longer a prediction.