Setting

The brilliant North Carolina trio Setting possesses two preferred modes of psychedelic musical transportation. The first, often heard live, involves immersive disorientation through enormous improvisational sets; they start at one point and slowly wind their way back toward it, as if they were Cluster journeying the hills of Appalachia, the peninsula of South India, and the experimental spaces of Chicago all at once. The second—at least as heard on their studio albums so far—is more sculptural and discrete, with Setting finding a groove or a tone, pursuing it toward some unexpected horizon of rhythm and melody, and then letting it fade like a slow breath out. Those paths have increasingly converged over their relatively short tenure as a band, like a jam band learning how to sculpt a studio album.

Though Setting is new, its principals are likely familiar. Jaime Fennelly creates enormous, bustling synthesizer landscapes as Mind Over Mirrors and played in the great Peeesseye. Joe Westerlund is an inquisitive and versatile drummer, a student of Milford Graves who played in multiple folk-rock bands while building a committed and delightful solo practice. And aside from his own absorbing work as a bandleader, multi-instrumentalist Nathan Bowles (best known for banjo) is a longtime member of Spiral Joy Band, Black Twig Pickers, and Pelt. Like that last legendary act, Setting may sound familiar, but the results—dizzying, exhilarating, and lifting as they are—feel ever new.