The North Carolina trio Setting brings together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative mindset to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Known for work in Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell, multi-instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund subvert expectations while creating a sense of wonderment. Their intricate interplay of synthesizers, cassette loops, banjo, keyboards, electronics, zithers, and a litany of percussive instruments form a tactile amalgam of celestial transcendence and terrestrial rhythm, a loamy pulse fluidly guiding every minute fluctuation in feel. Setting’s self-titled album is a definitive statement of their improvisational acumen meeting compositional rigor, a robust wellspring of hypnagogic grooves and mosaiced textures.

Setting harnesses the euphoria of communal creation. “This is one of the most joyous albums I've made with other musicians. It felt like we were all in the slipstream,” notes Fennelly. Bowles adds: “Making this is maybe the easiest thing in my life; it’s not struggle music. This collaboration feels like it’s just coming out of the air, like it’s breathing.”

Fennelly’s synth programming acts as a guiding light, bending pieces into dynamic arcs and imbuing them with swirling hues, while rhythmic push-and-pull between Westerlund and Bowles lends an elasticity to each track’s warp and weft. Their working methods have found a kindred traveler in Adam McDaniel from Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios, whose engineering and production work forms an indispensable piece of the album’s dynamism and luminescent fidelity. Across the five pieces, the trio make deft use of their seemingly infinite palettes to mold landscapes that appear familiar at first glance before glowing with vibrant new colors as the whole picture sets in.

The eponymous album from Setting is the product of three intuitive players and deep listeners, artists who use those skills to create transformative music. The trio shirk any broader categorizations, as their unique dynamic pieces are alight with arrangements urgent and smoldering, patient and emotive.