SML – How You Been

The »new« jazz is still largely represented by the Chicago label International Anthem. And it shares a decisive commonality with the »old« jazz: it does not emerge in a hermetically sealed space where everyone minds their own business, but instead forms – much like in the 1950s and 60s – an open-ended network of musicians in which everyone works with everyone else. The members of SML – bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Booker Stardrum and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann – are all interconnected, collaborating across projects in shifting constellations. Out of this mesh, SML develop a distinctive dynamic that naturally channels their different backgrounds into new results.

How You Been is the project’s second album – and already in its very approach it commits what authenticity purists might consider a mortal sin. The music is created through extensive post-production of live recordings from the group’s own concerts. While others use live performances to reproduce their musical past as faithfully as possible in the present, SML treat concerts as raw material for future music. In this multi-stylistic spectacle, African rhythms, no-wave, wind-skewed horn lines, distorted solos and electronic interference jostle for space – and Miles Davis stands there with On The Corner and gives his blessing.