SML :: How You Been
Photo: Charlie Weinmann
Since the release of SML’s highly influential debut album “Small Medium Large”, the LA-based quintet, composed of such fundamental forces as bassist Anna Butterss (Daniel Villarreal, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Isbell), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Meshell Ndegeocello, Leon Bridges), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia Honer, Icy Demons), guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Sam Wilkes, Perfume Genius, Meg Duffy), and percussionist Booker Stardrum (Amirtha Kidambl, Lee Ranaldo, Lisel), the cosmic collective continues to collect and connect with the universe by demonstrating the brilliance of music, and how it can be experienced with open ears and meditative minds with their latest effort “How You Been.” While communicating a liberating language through the melodic medium of jazz, the group worked with an extensive collection of post-production recordings from several shows, similar to their previous work. Still, where the sonic spiritualism of their sophomore material takes its listeners, a fundamental line is drawn in the sands of time, where the vast richness of human expression and the limitless landscape of captivating compositions break on through to the other side. Like a ghostly bridge connecting the past movements to the piercing reality of the present, SML’s music isn’t some superior substance, but rather a lucid language spoken through the melodic mist. The listener’s responsibility is to inhale and exhale its existential energy, while the mist separates, revealing a romantic revolution in sound, texture, and emotional embrace. Consisting of live recordings, extraterritorial elements, and the sonic symbolisms of electric Davis, SML carefully capture something brilliantly bold and almost ethereal with the critical contents of the album.
Photo: Enrique Ramirez
While the metaphysical material shapeshifts into this multi-dimensional form, the group simultaneously pulls from several locations, such as the High Low, and Zebulon in Los Angeles, Public Records in New York City, the Empty Bottle in the Windy City, and Tractor Tavern in Seattle over the course of a year between 2024 and 2025. The combined material is fictionally fierce and riddled with an alchemical atmosphere that takes listeners on a visceral voyage that one could never forget, even if they tried. “How You Been” is a mythical challenge to your current state of consciousness at any given time. While willfully whispering into the universal unknown, the esteemed ecosystem of LA’s new school of jazz and improvised music has boiled over the esoteric edges and into the sonic streets where its salty stream purifies the residents near the poetic perimeters of the Pacific Ocean. A city that is currently occupied by contemporaries like Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and Expansion Trio, the Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes trio, and several projects and cultural collectives that stir the prolific pot of unity and creativity. Featuring numbers like “Taking Out The Trash”, “Brood Board SHROOM,” “Old Mytth”, and the album’s epic ender “Mouth Words”, “How You Been” strikes a sentimentally subconscious nerve, before breaking off in the heart during a biblical battle someplace vintage, calm, and coastal.
