Audiopile Review: Exciting album from the International Anthem camp, a freshly minted group revolving around heavily utilized players from within the always exciting LA jazz and improv scene. SML is made up of two members who played with Jeff Parker’s quartet on his bar-raising live LP, Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy—Josh Johnson and Anna Butterss—who team up alongside Booker Stardrum (NNA, Feeding Tube, Northern Spy), Gregory Uhlmann, and Jeremiah Chiu, a recent Record of the Week recipient. Criss-crossing between jazz, fourth world, ambient and rock, SML’s improvised sessions are then edited, chopped and layered into wholly new material, borrowing the Makaya McCraven technique exemplified on In The Moment, an album that helped forge the International Anthem aesthetic. With one finger on the pulse and repetition of kraut rock, they crystallize their vision through micro-funk breaks and free form jazz, adhering more to groove than skronk, the sound of a group endlessly feeling for something to lock into. At times reminiscent of the Gendel/Wilkes universe but also hinting at Eno’s psychi-rhythmic production on Remain In Light, Small Medium Large help ring in International Anthem’s 10th year, a label that continues to blur the lines between jazz, improv and electronic music.

SML is Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, Gregory Uhlmann. “Small Medium Large” was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales at ETA, Los Angeles, CA and compiled, arranged and edited with additional production recording and studio composition by Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann at home studios in Los Angeles, CA and Kingston, NY.