*Announcing* SAUL WILLIAMS meets CARLOS NIÑO & FRIENDS at TreePeople // new album out 8/28/25
(( photo by Todd Weaver ))
*** announcing ***
Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople
Digital Album out August 28th, 2025 (all platforms)
2xLP & CD available September 19th, 2025
We are honored to announce today Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople, the first collaborative album from poet/vocalist Saul Williams and percussionist/producer Carlos Niño, out August 28th, 2025. The album’s opener “Sound then Words” is available on all digital platforms today as lead single.
(( album cover image by Todd Weaver ))
Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople was recorded live underneath black oak and walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024. The performance, which was organized by Noah Klein of Living Earth on the grounds of longstanding conservationist organization TreePeople, was the first of its kind for Williams and Niño, who have been friends since the late 1990s.
For the occasion, Niño assembled and directed an ensemble of frequent collaborators including Nate Mercereau (Guitar Synthesizer, Live Sampling with Midi Guitar, Sample Sources), Aaron Shaw (Flute, Soprano Saxophone with Pedals, Tenor Saxophone), Andres Renteria (Bells, Congas, Egyptian Rattle Drum, Hand Drums, Percussion), Maia (Flute, Vibraphone, Voice), Francesca Heart (Computer, Conch Shell, Sound Design), and Kamasi Washington (Tenor Saxophone).
Williams’ inspired poetics both fit seamlessly and guide clairvoyantly the electro-acoustic ecosystem created by Niño & Friends – a constellation of deep connections and intersecting linkups from complementary sound makers. There’s the dialogue between not just Niño & Williams but Niño and Renteria’s reciprocal percussions, the intergenerational woodwind counterpoint between Washington and Shaw, and the hovering harmonics of Maia’s vibraphone in aerial resonance with Heart’s digital designs. Heart’s sounds also make a beautiful analogue to synth-guitarist Nate Mercereau, whose live sampling and manipulation techniques turn fleeting moments of sonic presence into musical architecture in real time.
Deepening the dimensionality of this constellation, Mercereau and Niño are several years into a shared musical simpatico that has yielded dozens of collaborations (including their work together on André 3000’s New Blue Sun, and their recent Openness Trio album alongside saxophonist Josh Johnson released via Blue Note Records) making their particular interaction on this recording as spiritual and transcendent as it is subtle and implicit. And there is yet another connection to be highlighted still.
Late in the set, Williams shares an extended reflection on the Dutch East India Trade Company, the indigenous Lenape people on the island of Manahatta, the origins of Wall Street, and a prayer for the end of empire as he incites an epic crescendo from the ensemble, swirling behind the twin winds of Shaw and Washington, spirited by his repeated call “I’ve seen enough.” The smoke has only begun to clear from this emotional apex as Williams passes the torch to poet aja monet, who arrests the atmosphere with a soft apocalyptic reading of a piece from her notebook, “The Water Is Rising.”
As Monet finishes her poem and steps aside, Williams follows her foreboding words with a solemnly hopeful return – closing the ceremony with a parable about a firing squad, where one member's dilemma is a "system of belief" allowing for humanity in the heart of an oppressor.
(( photo by Mikel Patrick Avery ))
...Upcoming...
Saul Williams, Carlos Niño, and various Friends bringing fire and water to a handful of cities this fall, including a two-night return to the place where their new collaborative album was made.
September 27th - Walk The Block Festival - Seattle WA - tickets
September 30th - Yoshi’s (night 1) - Oakland CA - tickets
October 1st - Yoshi’s (night 2) - Oakland CA - tickets
October 2nd - TreePeople (night 1) - Los Angeles CA - tickets
October 4th - TreePeople (night 2) - Los Angeles CA - tickets
October 13th - City Winery (night 1) - Atlanta GA - tickets
October 14th - City Winery (night 2) - Atlanta GA - tickets
October 15th - Neighborhood Theatre - Charlotte NC - tickets
October 16th - Black Cat - Washington DC - tickets
October 17th - City Winery - Philadelphia PA - tickets
October 19th - Sultan Room - Brooklyn NY - tickets
November 6th - Pitchfork Festival - London UK - tickets
November 15th - Le Guess Who? Festival - Utrecht NL - tickets
(( photo by Todd Weaver ))
…about Saul Williams and Carlos Niño…
Saul Williams came to worldwide attention as a writer and performer with his debut film, SLAM (dir. Marc Levin) winning Sundance's Grand Jury Prize and Cannes Camera D'Or in 1998, introducing the world to the phenomenon of slam poetry competitions and Saul as a global ambassador of modern poetry.
As a musician, Saul's albums have featured genre-bending collaborations with producers, such as Rick Rubin and Trent Reznor, that helped usher in Brooklyn's Afro-Punk movement. Saul has also collaborated with “Contemporary Music” composers, writing the libretto for Ted Hearne's LA Philharmonic produced oratorio PLACE and two symphonies by the late Swiss composer, Thomas Kessler, based on two books of Saul's poetry, ,said the shotgun to the head. and The Dead Emcee Scrolls. Overall, Saul has released six studio albums and five books of poetry, translated into multiple languages.
In 2022, Saul wrote, composed the soundtrack/score, and co-directed the science-fiction musical Neptune Frost, alongside his co-director and creative partner, Anisia Uzeyman. Neptune Frost made its world debut as part of Cannes Film Festival's “Director's Fortnight” and was selected by NYT's film critic A.O. Scott as the #2 film of the year.
As an actor Saul has worked in theater, film and television. He was a series regular on the sitcom Girlfriends. He is the first African-American to win Best Actor in Africa's largest film festival FESPACO for his work in the Senegalese film TEY (“Aujourd'hui”) directed by Alain Gomis and his 2020 performance in Akilla’s Escape earned him a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Actor.
He was the lead in Broadway's first Hip Hop musical, Holler If You Hear Me, based on the lyrics of Tupac Shakur and directed by Kenny Leon. Saul also starred in the two final campaigns of Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton, appearing in Peculiar Contrast, Perfect Light (F/W 2021) and Amen Break (S/S 2022). Most recently, Saul appears as the preacher “Jedidiah Moore” in Ryan Coogler's Sinners.
As a performer, Saul has toured in over forty countries, lectured in hundreds of universities, and served as a guest professor of poetry and performance at Stanford University. Saul holds a BA in Theater and Philosophy from Morehouse College and MFA in Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
A prolific album Producer, expansive Percussionist, experimental Composer, connector, communicator, Carlos Niño is known primarily for his main project Carlos Niño & Friends, and for his extensive work on André 3000’s New Blue Sun. Previously Niño made albums as/with Ammoncontact, Build An Ark, The Life Force Trio, and others. Niño cites Iasos, Laraaji, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, Adam Rudolph, Idris Ackamoor, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Yusef Lateef, Alice Coltrane, Airto, Kamau Daaood, Dwight Trible, Dexter Story, Jesse Peterson, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Jamire Williams, Deantoni Parks, Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau, and André 3000 as among his “closest Mentors, Influences, Elders, and peers, all of whom I know well, (or at least met several times,) in this life...”
Deluxe Vinyl Package
Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at Treepeople comes on a Limited edition 140 gram vinyl 2xLP, inside a heavyweight jacket, with 8 page insert booklet, hype sticker and printed poly-lined printed inner-sleeves. Pressed at Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST.T.
Available on Limited Edition "Forest Edition" Color vinyl for $37 USD.
Also available on Classic Black vinyl for $32 USD.
𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 ‘𝟮𝟱 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗘
The 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 ‘𝟮𝟱 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗘 collects the three new IARC releases of this season (including Tortoise's Oganesson Remixes EP, Chicago Underground Duo's Hyperglyph, and Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at Treepeople) and ships them as a single parcel.
Purchase gets you a bundle-exclusive discount of 10% off the LP prices as well as a discounted shipping cost.The bundle will ship from our warehouses in the US, EU, and UK, but don’t wait too long, the quantity available in each warehouse is limited! Early purchase is recommended to ensure the lowest possible shipping, tax, and VAT costs.
All items will ship together in one package around September 12th. Bandcamp downloads will be sent via email for all the releases by the ship date.
IA11 Lightweight Tote
Check out our IA11 Lightweight Tote, now in stock and ready to ship. Features our #IA11 anniversary chrysanthemum emblem – shiny gold ink on a navy blue lightweight tote, printed in Chicago.
