Mandy, Indiana producer and guitarist Scott Fair has announced the debut EP by Set Dressing, his new side project. I Can’t Be Alone Tonite comes out April 11 via Fire Talk. Ringing in that news is the single “Date Line,” which comes with a retrograded music video by Gretchen Krueger, featuring grainy 3D animations of toys, instruments, and other colorful items. Watch it below.
This is the second song Set Dressing has shared from I Can’t Be Alone Tonite, following last month’s “Class Valedictorian.” When discussing the “Date Line” video, Fair emphasized the importance of 1990s toy sounds, liminal spaces, and the film Skinamarink as influences. “[Gretchen Krueger and I] felt that there was a dark undercurrent to this track that was being masked by a sugary, day-glo coat of paint,” Fair said. “The song and visual explore how bright plastic packaging can distract from more sinister or harmful intentions.”
Set Dressing is framed, in a press release, as an anonymous extension of Fair’s noise-rock band, represented only by an avatar. Signing to Fire Talk continues Fair’s relationship with the label, which also put out Mandy, Indiana’s 2023 debut full-length, I’ve Seen a Way.
Set Dressing will play a pair of UK shows in the coming months: a Manchester show, at P3 Annihilation Eve, on April 12, and one at Salford’s Sounds From the Other City Festival on May 4.
Revisit the Rising interview “Mandy, Indiana Combat Our Dystopian Hellscape With Menacing Post-Punk.”
