Join Maltodextrin on Sunday, February 22nd at 1pm to hear his recent conversation with Jeremiah Chiu and Booker Stardrum of L.A. based band, SML, before the group’s sold out shows at SFJAZZ on February 26th & 27th.
SML is a new quintet composed of luminaries from Los Angeles’s thriving jazz, improvised, and indie music scenes: bassist Anna Butterss (Jason Isbell, Phoebe Bridgers, Makaya McCraven, Daniel Villarreal), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia Honer, Icy Demons), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Meshell Ndegeocello, Leon Bridges, Carlos Niño), percussionist Booker Stardrum (Amirtha Kidambi, Lisel, Lee Ranaldo, Patrick Shiroishi) and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Sam Wilkes, Meg Duffy, Perfume Genius).
Their debut album, Small Medium Large is a sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock’s Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole. Taken in totality, the album captures a euphoric creative synchronicity between some of today’s most exciting musicians.


