Circles Around the Sun is an instrumental band initially spearheaded by guitarist Neal Casal, that formed to create incidental music for 2015's Fare Thee Well concerts by surviving members of the Grateful Dead. After the concerts, the group issued excerpts from the shows as Interludes for the Dead. The positive response motivated them to release a 2018 follow-up, Let It Wander, a flowing meld of jazz-funk, fusion, and R&B. After completing the Meets Joe Russo EP and a third album in 2019, Casal died by suicide. The band forged ahead and toured with a rotating cast of guitarists before John Lee Shannon was invited to join permanently; he made his album debut on 2023's Language. The following year, CATS enlisted acclaimed harpist/vocalist/composer Mikaela Davis as a co-billed collaborator for After Sunrise, and he played with them on their North American support tour.