Ever Setting Mind is the first solo output from Zachary Vito. The EP’s title replaces the common phrase ever setting ‘sun’ for ‘mind’ in a celebration of nostalgia; a setting sun is a thing of beauty, which fades away and returns each day, sometimes brighter or darker. As such, memories are not just static in our past but instead remain a dynamic part of us into the future.

Bookending the EP are ‘Ever Setting Mind’ and ‘Purple State,’ the former’s verses incorporate the broken rhythms of Cate Le Bon with the jangle pop of Flying Nun bands in its choruses, all of it coated in the 60’s production sensibilities of Matt Rendon (The Resonars/Trouble in Mind). Vito was eager to work with Rendon again, after recording a single with him in 2015, that ended up on Rendon’s curated tape for a Burger Records.

Ever Setting Mind was engineered by Rendon at Midtown Island Studio, where he also served as the rhythm section on the songs playing bass and drums. Recorded onto 8-track tape, the EP features contributions on guitar from Vito’s long-time collaborator Jeff Lownsbury (Muscle Beach) and violinist Robert Anthony Villa, both of whom add pastoral flourishes to the songs (see ‘Wait of the World’), which is carried by Villa’s soaring strings and ends with a descending scale of triplets from Lownsbury reminiscent of Ali Farka Toure. Ever Setting Mind was mastered by Wyatt Blair (Burger Records), an early supporter of Vito’s work having released first his first EP on Blair’s Lolipop label.

The songs see Vito abandon the personal, first-person perspective of his early work as Union Pacific and take on a new persona, voiced in the second person, speaking to his peers, as well as himself. Vito’s songs combine melancholy and optimism, always balancing minor chords with major chords for a pervasive sense of hopefulness in the songs (I reflect on it always/I miss it some days.)

Ever Setting Mind was written in the fall of 2016 during the U.S. presidential election, with recording taking place both before and after the final vote. Unintentionally but perhaps unavoidably, parts of the songs reflect that climate. Namely, America’s problem with gun violence and mass shootings, specifically recalling the reaction of morning news anchors after the Pulse nightclub shooting in ‘The One Who Got Away’ (Everybody on the news looked like they’d been crying/it sounds cliché to put it that way/but I can’t stand what I’ve seen today) as well as addressing sentiments of xenophobia; (Because the Right just fuel the wrong/so tell me who is he to say who shouldn’t belong?)

"Il reste environ 7 milliards d’années à l’homme avant la mort du Soleil. Si celui de Phil Spector a disparu un soir de 2003, Zachary Vito dans son Ever Setting Mind EP en retrouve toute l’ ADN mais sans les fringues, et s’ il ne faut pas confondre la peau et les vêtements, alors vraiment l’essentiel est là." - Music & Rubbish (2018)