SML – “How You Been”

Experimental electro-jazz quintet SML follow up on the promise of their live debut with the intricate and wonderful How You Been.

Release date: November 7, 2025 | International Anthem Recording Co. | Instagram | Bandcamp

For years, the image I had about jazz was a dusty one, black and white photos of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, soundtracked by the bop and post-bop movements, if not big band or Dixieland jazz. Thankfully, that changed when I was introduced to International Anthem Recordings. The Chicago-based label has been putting out some of the most groundbreaking and exciting jazz and experimental music for some time now. Acts like Makaya McCraven, Ben Lamar Gay, Alabaster Deplume, and Jeff Parker have frequently been among my favorite releases in any given year since, and they host a slew of other great artists that consistently turn heads.

It was through this label that the possibilities of electronic music mingling with jazz entered my radar. Though far from the analog sounds of the jazz I thought I knew, and even far from electric jazz innovators like Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis, these newer artists seem just as fearless, pushing away from rigid jazz puritans into sounds that flirt with crossover appeal, yet remain distinctly jazz in nature. As I was diving deeper into new jazz discovery, my interest in synthesizers picked up as well. The possibilities of the many kinds of synths still boggles my mind, both in learning about them as well as wrapping my head around playing them in a live setting, let alone an improvised session.

Which brings us to the wildly impressive Jeremiah Chiu, a Los Angeles-based musician, community organizer, educator, and graphic designer whose album In Electric Time (2023) saw him recording improvisations in a synthesizer museum and whose collaboration album, The Closest Thing To Silence (2024) with Ariel Kalma and Marta Sofia Honer was an ambient jazz highlight for me last year. Chiu joined forces with saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Booker Stardrum, guitarist Gregory Uhlmann, and bassist Anna Butterss to form an improvisational act called SML. The supergroup of LA jazz and experimental musicians released an edited down live recording, Small Medium Large, in 2024 that garnered loads of critical praise, fusing elements of Afrobeat, Krautrock, and even post-punk into a powerhouse of diverse and electrifying sounds. Now, SML unleashes How You Been as a follow-up and proper debut.

Opening track, “Guttural Utterance” sounds like a gang of synthesizers warming up, clanks adorning the background with electric bass tones carrying a disjointed melody, but this is merely an intro. “Chicago Four” locks into a complex polyrhythm between the collection of instruments, each passing measure revealing knob twists on the synths that percolate like a coffee maker on a rocky sailboat. Like Sam Prekop and Drew McIntire‘s Sons Of…, the sounds on this album slowly morph into new directions, albeit with shorter songs. “Taking Out The Trash” displays a rougher edge, like a neo-future Fela Kuti with a jerky beat and a killer sax solo. Later on “Chicago Three” SML show a more subdued side, chilling their frenetic energy into something almost calming.

This contrast of more abrasive sounds and soothing textures makes for great jazz in any format, but SML excel and finding the right balance between the two. Stardrum’s drumming and percussion are often frantic, shuffling and skittering along with not only precise timing, but precise force. Butterss, likewise exercises restraint as necessary, unfolding grooves like a psychedelic soul song. Meanwhile, Johnson and Uhlmann swing between adding texture and flourishes. There isn’t much in the way of modal jazz’s penchant for featuring a solo from each instrument in every song. Instead, on tracks like “Old Myth”, the band flows together like water while Chiu’s army of synths dance through multiple permutations. I am unsure if SML has a distinct band leader, but it definitely feels like Chiu’s contributions drive much of the album. I could also just be wildly impressed at the sheer amount of electronic sounds at play and how no matter what envelope or effect changes he employs, nothing ever sounds off, which would be easy to do for an amateur like myself.

Late in the album, the title track displays swaths of sci-fi tones over more Afrobeat adjacent polyrhythms, like a cyberpunk future that sounds far more hopeful and integrated than our present is shaping up to be. Besides the incredible musicianship that never steers too close to jam band territory, the appeal of SML lies in the hopefulness that collective creativity can bring. Through improvisation and a shared vision, this quintet has delivered an exhilarating record on How You Been, brimming with anticipatory energy and the tangible cohesiveness of a community of dreamers and creatives that AI or outdated notions of what jazz is could ever imagine. How You Been is an inspirational triumph, a synthesis of opposing styles that only the finest musicians could pull off.