{"id":2434287,"date":"2026-05-27T16:06:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2434287"},"modified":"2026-05-27T16:06:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:06:45","slug":"sml-announce-new-album-spontaneous-music-live-on-international-anthem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sml-announce-new-album-spontaneous-music-live-on-international-anthem\/","title":{"rendered":"SML Announce New Album \u201cSpontaneous Music Live\u201d on International Anthem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"penci-post-entry-inner\">\n<p>\t\t\t<i class=\"penci-post-countview-number-check\" style=\"display:none\">12<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>SML have spent two albums teaching listeners to love a beautiful illusion. Their new release pulls it apart.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">The Los Angeles quintet \u2014 bassist <strong>Anna Butterss<\/strong>, synthesist <strong>Jeremiah Chiu<\/strong>, saxophonist <strong>Josh Johnson<\/strong>, drummer <strong>Booker Stardrum<\/strong> and guitarist <strong>Gregory Uhlmann<\/strong> \u2014 announce <em>Spontaneous Music Live<\/em>, out on LP, cassette and digitally on <strong>June 26th<\/strong> via <strong>International Anthem<\/strong>. Lead piece <em>Roundabouts<\/em>, the album\u2019s 24-minute B-side, is on streaming platforms today.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/klofmag.com\/2026\/05\/sml-announce-new-album-spontaneous-music-live-on-international-anthem\/about:blank\" seamless=\"\" data-rocket-lazyload=\"fitvidscompatible\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1898338572\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=1894112842\/transparent=true\/\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/intlanthem.bandcamp.com\/album\/spontaneous-music-live\">Spontaneous Music Live by SML<\/a><\/iframe><noscript><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1898338572\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=1894112842\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/intlanthem.bandcamp.com\/album\/spontaneous-music-live\">Spontaneous Music Live by SML<\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we reviewed their 2024 debut <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/klofmag.com\/2024\/07\/sml-small-medium-large\/\"><em>Small Medium Large<\/em><\/a>, Thomas Blake described \u201cexploratory kosmische jazz\u201d built from live shows that had been \u201crecorded, dismantled and reassembled.\u201d Last year\u2019s <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/klofmag.com\/2025\/11\/sml-how-you-been\/\"><em>How You Been<\/em><\/a> saw the band \u201cperfect the collaging technique they introduced on their debut\u201d \u2014 tracks stitched from improvised fragments, then edited and post-produced into something punchy and polished. Both records, in other words, were heavily edited, shaped and post-produced with the \u201cbest morsels collected, arranged and rearranged just so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Spontaneous Music Live<\/em> removes the editor\u2019s hand entirely. Recorded across the band\u2019s December 2025 residency at LA venue Zebulon, weeks after <em>How You Been<\/em> arrived, its forty-eight minutes comprise two side-length pieces of unedited improvisation, captured and mixed live to analog tape by <strong>Bryce Gonzales<\/strong>, the engineer behind Jeff Parker\u2019s <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/klofmag.com\/2024\/12\/jeff-parker-eta-ivtet-the-way-out-of-easy\/\">ETA IVtet live documents<\/a>. What you hear is the band in the room, mining for the moment of discovery in real time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That tension between the edited and the live runs deep here. Our reviews kept reaching for the same touchstones \u2014 Blake heard the ghost of Miles Davis at his most experimental on the debut, and on <em>How You Been<\/em> a band \u201cpaying subtle homage to Miles Davis and Can.\u201d It\u2019s a fitting lineage. SML carry the same split persona those acts did: the tight, deconstructed studio statement set against the long, hypnotic live expansion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The roots help explain the instinct. SML formed in the orbit of Jeff Parker\u2019s <em>Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy<\/em>, the long-form improvised set Parker cut at the now-defunct LA venue ETA, with Butterss and Johnson in the band. When ETA closed in 2023, the pair joined Chiu, Stardrum and Uhlmann, and the live shows they played were the seed for everything since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every member has been mid-stride. Stardrum released his WeJazz debut <em>Close Up on the Outside<\/em> in February; Uhlmann put out his International Anthem solo album <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/klofmag.com\/2026\/03\/gregory-uhlmann-extra-stars\/\"><em>Extra Stars<\/em><\/a> in March, which Blake called \u201cdeceptively light and expertly layered,\u201d praising him as \u201ca human wrecking ball in reverse, swinging from studio to studio, band to band.\u201d Johnson and Butterss both feature on Flea\u2019s solo album <em>Honora<\/em> and on the new Jeff Parker ETA IVtet album <em>Happy Today<\/em>. In March the band played six full-capacity shows over three nights as artists-in-residence at Big Ears in Knoxville, and a New York Times feature last November placed them at the centre of an LA jazz surge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the timing is right to hear SML uncut. On the studio albums the post-production was part of the art \u2014 the perspective, the shaping, the punch. <em>Spontaneous Music Live<\/em> hands that perspective back to the listener. Each fragment that might one day be reworked into an album track sits where it landed, scattered through the collective push and pull. As Blake wrote of <em>How You Been<\/em>, this is \u201cimprovised music at its most engaging, its most immediate\u201d \u2014 only here there\u2019s nowhere for it to hide, and it sounds great.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Spontaneous Music Live<\/em> is out <strong>June 26th<\/strong> on International Anthem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Pre-Order: <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/international-anthem.lnk.to\/SpontaneousMusicLive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/international-anthem.lnk.to\/SpontaneousMusicLive<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SML prepare to headline two nights at Los Angeles\u2019s Teragram Ballroom on June 26 and 27, as part of <strong><em>Aquarium Drunkard<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s 21st Anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source klofmag.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>12 SML have spent two albums teaching listeners to love a beautiful illusion. Their new release pulls it apart. The Los Angeles quintet \u2014 bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Booker Stardrum and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann \u2014 announce Spontaneous Music Live, out on LP, cassette and digitally on June 26th via [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2434288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2434287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SML-Announce-New-Album-Spontaneous-Music-Live-on-International-Anthem.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2434287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2434289,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434287\/revisions\/2434289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2434288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2434287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2434287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2434287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}