Weekend Intermission is our regular feature where we look at an artist or band not from the Nordic countries, just to mix things up a bit.
The needle of the record player lovingly goes down on the amazing, strange ectoplasmic-mint green vinyl and fits inside the groove, wild experimental jazz emerging from the speakers flanking it, and those words do not even come close to doing the music contained in those grooves, justice.
What is sexy? What is intellectual? What is jazz? What is otherworldly? This is all those things and a frightening amount more. Music from another galaxy played by ferocious and brave musicians. Transforming, mutating, morphing as it goes. The barriers and confines that many musicians reside within do not appear present when these stellar SML players – Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann – come together.
The five gifted musicians responsible open up in ‘How you been’ the greatest treasure chest of musical toys, venturing beyond the constraints of traditional genres to create something beautifully outlandish from its very inception. Following up their debut album a year earlier SML had pointed towards magic and settled for nothing less wherever it turned musically on its heels. The otherworldly is the only standard here.
Some of the standout interplay I have ever observed between musicians comes from a nod, a wink, or even not looking at one other, such is the ability to read each other’s minds, know where they are going next, leading, following, a fellowship of harmony, melody, togetherness discovered with every step. This sums SML (or Small Medium Large) up well, a project that oozes charisma and unity, each player going off into their own terrain and magically remaining connected to their other four band members every time. An effortless symbiosis.
The music on ‘How you been’ wields and cuts, it chops and changes, it explores like so few musicians do, and even fewer to this level. You never know what is coming next, one sonic painting after another. It’s akin to an array of masterpieces at a gallery exhibition.
Don’t even mention how prolific these folks all are, having released a similarly splendid debut as a quintet only a year earlier and all having released other fantastic records within the past year or so with some of this group or other well-known faces of the phenomenal International Anthem label that has overseen SML’s two records thus far. You can only hope much more is yet to come from surely one of the most dynamic jazz groups on the planet right now.
It was Jeff Parker who opened the doorway to this record label for me. A musician so singularly talented, a shining light of the guitar and with an additional weapon in his knack for electronics that goes far beyond the confines of the ‘jazz’ label, which is what this label International Anthem does so well. It’s a loosely-labelled genre on a recording company spilling over with promise, ideas, and contemporary magic.
Every sound, every aural communion shared here is a love letter to those who spend their whole lives awaiting the brave, the adventurous, and the utterly vital. This is something sonic to take us into unknown realms. While not a perfect record, you can only marvel at the collective bravery. So, not perfect, but almost.
Small. Medium. Large. Are they still getting bigger and better? And if so, what next? Whatever world they come from they made one of the best albums heard on Planet Earth in 2025.
(Continues after Spotify link).
Find them on:
Website: https://www.sml.band/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sml.band/
