Setting by Setting

The North Carolina Piedmont-based trio of Setting bring together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative, explorative mindsets from groups such as Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Multi-instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund subvert expectations while creating a sense of ease and 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. Dedicated improvisers with years working together, the band has developed their own idiosyncratic vernacular and sense of flow. 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.” Built on long exploratory sessions, the trio developed their own syntax and an ability to shift in new directions with finer and finer grains of detail. The pieces of Setting use that shared understanding of each other as players and the electric spontaneity of improvisation as a framework for more elaborate, impactful compositions in the studio. Westerlund elaborates, “When you keep playing together show after show, things take a different shape. The elements can be subtler and more specific, and there are more references of past performances and past discoveries to draw from.”

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. “Heard a Bubble” fittingly froths up from ostinatos that increasingly layer with minutely evolving patterns, evoking a tender kosmiche over Saharan-style rhythms. Syncopated grooves dance across the stereo spectrum on “Gum Bump” before synthesizers erupt into heaps of magma. The floating drone of “What Kind of Fish is a Turtle” offers a minimalist respite before the steady, lyrical “Ribbon of Moss” wraps itself in a dusky haze. The ensemble’s powerful use of momentum reaches its zenith with the freight train “Derring-do,” as piano zither and banjo apply tension to ever-ratcheting drums and flares of warped chordal organ. 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.

Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly & Joe Westerlund.

settingsounds.com