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 (Thrill Jockey) 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.

Ben Hackett guides listeners through a collection of subtly grand, otherworldly soundscapes crafted in his Athens, Georgia home studio. Playing a wide range of instruments—horns, woodwinds, synthesizers, electronics, and traditional wood-and-wire instruments—Hackett embraces imperfection, letting the music unfold naturally. The album feels intimate, with each song forming a delicate ecosystem of movement and stillness, inviting quiet reflection without disturbing the sleeping dogs.