{"title":"SML","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"sml-small-medium-large","title":"SML - Small Medium Large","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eSML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir debut album 'Small Medium Large' began as a collection of long form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park, Los Angeles venue ETA. Unfortunately, this major development site for the burgeoning new West Coast jazz \u0026amp; improvised music sound closed its doors permanently at the end of 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe venue, perhaps best known outside of LA for Jeff Parker's 2022 album 'Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy', was the perfect location for the start of SML, especially given that both bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson are part of Parker's quartet that held down a regular gig at ETA since the venue's early days (and hence thoroughly documented, heard on Parker's album). 'Small Medium Large' was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales and compiled, arranged, and edited with additional production, recording, and studio composition by SML across their various home studios.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile editing, chopping, and rearranging stereo mixed\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eimprovisations is hardly a new idea (for a modern and relevant example we can look to Makaya McCraven's output on IARC) these results are a stunning expansion of the Teo Macero \/ Miles Davis editing concept explored on classics like 'In a Silent Way', 'On The Corner', and 'Get Up With It'. Stylistically though, these recordings have more in common with the proto-trance repetitions of Harmonia, and with Holgar Czukay's re-assembly technique used in his work with Can. Throw in a supremely intuitive utilization of polyrhythmic floating patterns (a la Susumu Yokota), and the result is a truly innovative take on time-clocked electronic rhythms augmented with live instrumentation that never loses that elusive human sway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Small Medium Large' is a sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock's Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament\/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole. Taken in totality, the album captures a euphoric creative synchronicity between some of today's most exciting musicians.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased June 28, 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music composed by Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, Gregory Uhlmann. Performed live by SML.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnna Butterss - Electric Bass\u003cbr\u003eJeremiah Chiu - Synthesizers, Live-sampling, Aux Percussion\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson - Saxophone, Electronics\u003cbr\u003eBooker Stardrum - Drums, Percussion\u003cbr\u003eGregory Uhlmann - Guitar, Effects\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales at ETA, Los Angeles (October 12–13 2022 \u0026amp; April 8–9 2023). Overdubs by SML (2024).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Jeremiah Chiu \u0026amp; SML.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; SML.\u003cbr\u003eSequenced by Scott McNiece \u0026amp; SML.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover art by Miranda Javid.\u003cbr\u003eInsert photos by Brian Guido.\u003cbr\u003eLayout by Jeremiah Chiu.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918618583381,"sku":"IARC0085LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3892331806_10.jpg?v=1779877993"},{"product_id":"sml-how-you-been","title":"SML - How You Been","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eSML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their second album, How You Been, finds the supergroup of prolific composer\/producers pushing ever further into the hyperrealist, collectivist approach to music creation nascently explored on their debut Small Medium Large, which was lauded as “awe-inspiring” by Glide, “exuberant” by the Los Angeles Times, and “an exciting milestone” by Pitchfork.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow You Been represents a breakthrough in the musical language of the group. This new work was crafted via extensive post-production of recordings from a handful of shows in a similar fashion to their debut, but whereas Small Medium Large was constructed from analog tapes of the band’s very first (and very modest) shows at bygone Highland Park LA venue ETA, How You Been was built with a higher level of self-awareness and a far deeper pool of source material.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBehind the thrust of the first album’s success, the band approached every performance in late 2024 and early 2025 as a generative opportunity to hone their sound and document their expansion across a new landscape of audiences, venues, and cities\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e. Despite the premeditation driving their commitment to record every moment, the band started every show without musical direction, improvising intuitively, completely. Within every performance is an impressive display of the band’s total trust in one another and confidence in their own instincts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs SML has evolved and spread out in space-time, their fluencies, both as an improvising unit in performance and as a production team in the studio, have sharpened. At inception the band inspired disparate but distinctive artist comparisons like Essential Logic, Oval, Herbie Hancock’s Sextant, and electric Miles Davis, as well as assorted genre touchpoints like Afrobeat, kosmiche, proto-techno and new-jazz. With How You Been their work manages to both collapse and explode such derivatives, displaying a new, high resolution version of SML, fully-flowered into a new strain of sound, bound to incite its own copycats in due time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“SML might signal a new iteration of jazz, or it might not be jazz at all, or it might not matter.” - Pitchfork\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s important to note that SML’s sound wasn’t created in a vacuum. The band is part of an extensive community of creative musicians who collaborate in a multitude of ways, and that community has proven to be essential to a growing family tree of innovative, genre-expanding music. Los Angeles in the 2020s is a musical Petri dish in the same way that Cologne \u0026amp; Dusseldorf were for the birth of Krautrock; Canterbury for progressive rock in the late 60s; NYC for No Wave \u0026amp; the Downtown sound in the late 70s and 80s; Chicago for genreless, Tortoise-adjacent sounds in the 90s. The musicians of SML represent the core of a new school within the Los Angeles jazz and improvised music scene that seems to breed infinitely overlapping combinations, including Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and Expansion Trio, the Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes trio, Anna Butterss’s own band (as heard on 2024’s Mighty Vertebrate), and various other solo and ensemble projects encompassing every single member of the SML, respectively.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn How You Been the curatorial challenge of the capture-cut production employed by SML is met by the delightful happenstance of each member being a seasoned producer on their own merit. Accordingly, SML’s perspective on what is a moment to expand upon with the post-producer’s knife and glue is five-strong. Each member’s proclivities, penchants, and predelections get their chance to filter the always-evolving elements of the group concept.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Chicago Four” uses a live recording from treasured Chicago haunt The Empty Bottle as its foundation. It begins with interlocking synth and percussion loops before the entry of Uhlmann’s wobble-effected electric guitar melody and Butterss’s picked bass counterpoint. Stardrum’s swinging traps slide in, catching up to a couple of added percussion layers, before Johnson adds distorted chordal hits that sound like hard horn samples from a golden era Bomb Squad or Rakim beat. It all intertwines perfectly and makes an otherworldly vehicle for Johnson and Chiu’s cascading keyed melody, which soars above and between, complimenting either side of a hypnotically shifting, infectiously repeating modulation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Brood Board SHROOM” is a temporary touchdown on an alien planet where rhythm moves in timeless, breath-like undulations, with repetitions cut from a very different cloth than the lock-step polyrhythmic grooves of “Chicago Four.” The track’s opening lines evoke the soft throbs of the beloved ambient works of Aphex Twin (or perhaps a Robitussen-drenched take on Steve Reich’s Different Trains), before frothy curtains of textured sound drape into the mix, overlaying like distant, minimalist symphonies in a gentle, synthetic recreation of free time — slackening and accelerating as each layer of tonal pulses hovers to front-and-center or retreats into the distance. It’s a gut feeling rather than an academic exercise, and it’s all in the service of forward motion. “Plankton” occupies a similar space albeit in bite-sized form, centering Buterss’s low end melodicism and high-string visitations surrounded by skittering tonal chatter from their bandmates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, SML’s experiments with this kind of pulsating freedom are heavily balanced by muscular turns and body mechanics fit for the dancefloor. “Taking Out the Trash” is a perfect pace-setter for How You Been, a punchy nugget encapsulating the essence of SML. Chiu’s percussion synth establishes the groove before Stardrum and Butterss drop in on a heavy breakbeat. Uhlmann comes in with a searing, plucked staccato funk line on his guitar that would give Glenn Branca and Larry Coryell something to high five about. Things eventually trip into a total breakdown, with only the perc synth still looping. When the band explodes back in, the key has changed, and Johnson is letting loose on a wailing, distorted saxophone solo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Is there a way to dim the lights a little more?” Chiu asks at the start of the album’s closer “Mouth Words.” Moments later SML takes us out with a mid-tempo 4\/4 groover dressed in swelling glissandos and punctuated by insistent, rapid-fire phrases from Johnson’s alto. As the final tune dissolves into a layer of arpeggiated chirps and sampled crowd sounds, Chiu’s voice is back again to say what we’re all thinking: “Very good. Thank you.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eOut November 7, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSML is:\u003cbr\u003eAnna Butterss - Electric Bass\u003cbr\u003eJeremiah Chiu - Modular Synthesizer, Live-sampling, Percussion,Synthesizers\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson - Saxophone, Electronics,Synthesizers\u003cbr\u003eBooker Stardrum - Drums, Percussion\u003cbr\u003eGregory Uhlmann - Guitar, Effects, Sampler, Electronics\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered and Recorded Live:\u003cbr\u003eZebulon, Los Angeles (July 8 \u0026amp; 9, 2024) by Bryce Gonzales\u003cbr\u003eThe High Low, Los Angeles (November 11, 2024) by Bryce Gonzales\u003cbr\u003ePublic Records, New York City (December 3, 2024) by Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eEmpty Bottle, Chicago (March 3, 2025) by Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eTractor Tavern, Seattle (March 20, 2025) by Dr. Jon\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComposed, compiled, edited, and overdubbed by SML (2025)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by SML\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Josh Johnson, SML, Bryce Gonzales, and Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eSequence by SML and Scott McNiece\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover art by Sonnenzimmer\u003cbr\u003ePhoto by David Haskell\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Jeremiah Chiu\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eAll rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Plankton\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919439389013,"sku":"IARC0105LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919439323477,"sku":"IARC0105LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919439257941,"sku":"IARC0105CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/HowYouBeen-SML.jpg?v=1780047183"},{"product_id":"sml-spontaneous-music-live","title":"SML - Spontaneous Music Live","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eSML is a Los Angeles based quintet featuring Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Spontaneous Music Live' contains two side-length pieces of unedited improvisation, recorded live at Los Angeles venue Zebulon during SML's December 2025 three-night residency, just weeks after the release of the band's second album HOW YOU BEEN. It was recorded and mixed live to analog tape by Bryce Gonzales (the same engineer\/wizard known for his gorgeous live captures\/mixes of Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBetween HOW YOU BEEN and their 2024 debut SMALL MEDIUM LARGE (both of which were heavily edited, shaped and post-produced) the band has developed a reputation for records that are heavily fused, polished, and punchy. The medium is on full post-modern display on those LPs, and the band’s post-production knife can be responsible for much of the perspective — the tastiest morsels collected, arranged, and rearranged just so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the source material from both those albums were live recordings. Long-form, unwieldy, ebbing and flowing. On top of that, every performance the band has ever done has been fully\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eimprovised in that spirit. So in the sphere of live performance the band’s esteem has grown down a different path — one of linear, hypnotic, expansion. It’s a perceived split persona shared by some of SML’s most inspiring conceptual bedfellows: compare the extended madness of Can’s 'Live in Paris 1973' to the relative tight form of 'Future Days' from the same year; the speed-funk chaos of Miles Davis’ 'Dark Magus' to the heavily deconstructed 'On The Corner' or 'Big Fun'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Spontaneous Music Live' removes the curatorial perspective and pulls the curtain back on that search-pluck-reconstruct editing process. What we’re left with is the psychedelic realism of the band in situ, in their home town, collectively improvising, fully in-the-moment, mining for that moment of discovery. We hear, in macro, each nugget of sound which could be the basis for a future SML album track, spattered amongst the collective chaos-and-control like stars in the night sky.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOut June 26, 2026\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImprovised live by SML: Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered, recorded and mixed live in stereo, direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales at Zebulon, Los Angeles (December 1-3, 2025).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003ePhoto by Sam Lee.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Jeremiah Chiu.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eAll rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53920282214741,"sku":"IARC0112LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0764858329_10.jpg?v=1780412331"}],"url":"https:\/\/international-anthem.k7store.com\/collections\/sml.oembed","provider":"International Anthem","version":"1.0","type":"link"}