Art in Manila

Following the 2004 breakup of Azure Ray, a dream pop-drenched Americana duo that resided on the Saddle Creek label in the early 2000s, founding member Orenda Fink went on to travel the world and work on her own material. Nudged by her collaboration with various Saddle Creek-related artists (notably Adrianne Verhoeven) during her stint as the driving force behind The Invisible Ones (a solo project purportedly inspired by Fink's encounter with voodoo on a trip to Tahiti), Fink formed a group called "Art Belle" in 2006. Comprised of former Invisible Ones touring mates Verhoeven, Dan McCarthy (who at that time was working under the moniker McCarthy Trenching), Steve Bartolomei, Ryan Fox, and Corey Broman, the band went on to adopt the name Art in Manila soon after and got to work laying down some tracks for their debut album, Set the Woods on Fire. Built on the kind of dreamy, alt-country-influenced rock that nodded to groups like the Buttless Chaps and, to a certain extent, Over the Rhine (in other words, sounding like Azure Ray minus the synthesizers and drum machines), the album was released on Saddle Creek in the late summer of 2007. ~ Margaret Reges, All Music Guide