HOW YOU BEEN - new album from SML out November 7th
HOW YOU BEEN
new album from
SML
out November 7th
LA-based quintet SML (bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann) announce a new album today, How You Been, out November 7th on LP/CD/DD.
The album’s lead track “Taking Out the Trash” is available via all digital music platforms now, along with an animated video by Nespy5euro.
The group has also shared details for a run of shows across fall 2025, including performances at Hulaween in Florida, Church of Sound in London, Thalia Hall in Chicago, a two-night stand at Los Angeles venue Zebulon, and more.
Listen to “Taking Out the Trash”
and preorder How You Been here.
(( photo of SML by Charlie Weinmann ))
(( How You Been cover art by Sonnenzimmer ))
SML’s second album How You Been finds the supergroup of prolific composer/producers pushing further into the hyperrealist, collectivist approach to music creation nascently explored on their 2024 debut Small Medium Large (which was lauded as “awe-inspiring” by Glide, “exuberant” by the Los Angeles Times, and “an exciting milestone” by Pitchfork).
How You Been represents a breakthrough in the musical language of the group. It 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, this new album was built with a higher level of self-awareness and a far deeper pool of source material.
Behind 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. Despite the premeditation driving their commitment to record every moment, the band started every show without musical direction, improvising intuitively, completely.
As SML evolved and spread out in space-time, their fluencies – both as an improvising unit in performance and as a production team in the studio – 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, kosmische, 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.
It’s important to note, however, 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 & Dusseldorf were for the birth of Krautrock; Canterbury for progressive rock in the late 60s; NYC for No Wave & the Downtown sounds of 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 (which features Butterss and Johnson) and Expansion Trio (which features Chiu), Uhlmann & Johnson’s trio with Sam Wilkes, Anna Butterss’s own band (which includes Uhlmann and Johnson, as heard on 2024’s Mighty Vertebrate), and various other solo and ensemble projects encompassing every single member of SML, respectively.
“Taking Out the Trash"
Today’s lead single “Taking Out the Trash”, which also comes via animated video by Nespy5euro, 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.
Upcoming Shows
October 31st - Live Oak FL - Hulaween - tickets
November 20th - London UK - Church of Sound
December 1st - Los Angeles CA - Zebulon - tickets
December 2nd - Los Angeles CA - Zebulon - tickets
December 11th - Philadelphia PA - Solar Myth - tickets
December 12th - Brooklyn NY - The Sultan Room - tickets
December 13th - Brooklyn NY - The Sultan Room - tickets
December 14th - Chicago IL - Thalia Hall - tickets
February 25th - San Diego CA - The Loft @ UCSD - tickets
February 26th - San Francisco CA - SF JAZZ Joe Henderson Lab - tickets
February 27th - San Francisco CA - SF JAZZ Joe Henderson Lab - tickets
March 26th - Knoxville TN - Big Ears Festival (3 night residency) - tickets
March 27th - Knoxville TN - Big Ears Festival (3 night residency) - tickets
March 28th - Knoxville TN - Big Ears Festival (3 night residency) - tickets
(( photo by David Haskell ))
…about SML…
SML is a quintet composed of luminaries from Los Angeles’s thriving jazz, improvised, and indie music scenes: bassist Anna Butterss (Jason Isbell, Phoebe Bridgers, Makaya McCraven, Jeff Parker), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia Honer, Icy Demons), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Meshell Ndegeocello, Leon Bridges, Carlos Niño), percussionist Booker Stardrum (Photay, Lisel, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Wendy Eisenberg) and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Meg Duffy, Perfume Genius, Tasha).
Their debut album Small Medium Large was recorded at the band’s first gigs at ETA in late 2022 and early 2023, post-produced in the following year, and released in Summer 2024 to wide critical acclaim, landing on ‘Best of 2024’ lists by Tone Glow, Passion of the Weiss, Bandcamp Daily, Hearing Things, and others.
Following the release of Small Medium Large, the band expanded beyond Los Angeles to perform at various festivals and venues including Rewire (NL), Brdcast (BE), Warm Love Cool Dreams (Chicago), Winter Jazz Fest (NY), Pickathon (OR), and others.
SML return with a new album, How You Been, in fall 2025, as well as a string of shows taking them through early 2026. In March 2026, they will be artists in residence at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, performing three nights in a row at the internationally renowned creative music summit.
DELUXE VINYL PACKAGE
How You Been comes on a 140 gram vinyl LP, inside a heavyweight reverse-board jacket with IARC obi strip and poly-lined printed inner-sleeve. Lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST, and pressed at Pallas in Germany.
Limited Edition *Plankton* Color Vinyl - $29
Classic Black Vinyl - $24
also available on
Compact Disc - $15
!!! FALL '25 BUNDLE IS HERE !!!
SML's How You Been is the most recent of three new physical releases we've announced for the upcoming fall season. And per usual, we're offering a limited quantity of bundles that gather them all, available for purchase now via our Bandcamp page.
The Fall ‘25 Bundle collects a full season of new releases 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.
Included in the Fall '25 Bundle:
IARC0103 (Makaya McCraven - Off the Record 2xLP)
IARC0099 (Tortoise - Touch)
IARC0105 (SML- How You Been)
Bundles 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 October 22nd. Bandcamp downloads will be sent via email for all the releases by, or before, the ship date.
ORDER THE FALL '25 BUNDLE on
limited edition color vinyl here
ORDER THE FALL '25 BUNDLE on
classic black vinyl here
