Today is the release day for the latest SML album, Spontaneous Music Live. I first heard it in March while driving to Big Ears because I received an advanced preview copy and I’ve been excited for this day when everyone else could hear it. It’s my favorite album of the year. Will it hold on to its favored nation status by December? A safe bet!
I was fortunate enough to interview all five members of SML for Aquarium Drunkard in anticipation of the new album’s release. The interview also served as one part of the Drunkard’s 21st anniversary celebration, highlighted by a special, two-night performance by SML in Los Angeles this weekend, June 26 & 26. After seeing the band perform at Big Ears in 2025 and this past March, I am beyond envious of those who are able to attend and experience SML, while celebrating the best music website on the planet.
My interview with the band happened in May over two sessions with members Zooming in from different locales and situations: Anna Butterss (bass) on the road with Jason Isbell, Jeremiah Chiu (synthesizers) and Josh Johnson (saxophone) at their respective homes, Booker Stardrum (percussion) providing a peek at his new drum kit, and Gregory Uhlmann (guitar) stroking a cat on his lap like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.
For the full-band interview, my first instinct was to listen to the album in full and query them about specific parts of the band’s collective sound within each track, similar to an interviewer asking a singer-songwriter about individual songs on their album. I didn’t do anything quite so intensely nerdy, but instead kept the inquiries to a healthy level of nerd.
In addition to the interview, I also wrote a short blurb about Spontaneous Music Live for AD’s 2026 Mid-Year Review. But to recognize the album’s release, I thought I’d share a longer breakdown of this seminal record.
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Within this current golden age of experimental and improvised music, the most thrilling and imaginative band at work right now is SML, the Los Angeles-based, instrumental, improvisational, jazz/funk/jam/electronic band. This statement could simply be amended to “SML is the best band in America.” Seemingly over-the-top superlatives such as these have been proclaimed after many of SML’s performances over the past year, especially significant since the band’s shows are different every time and without a pre-determined setlist or surefire hit song to rely on.
To date, SML have released two albums made up of edited, normal song-length pieces from the band’s longer live performances. But now, SML has shifted course with Spontaneous Music Live, the band’s latest record to be released by International Anthem. This is the first of the SML’s albums to present unedited pieces, allowing listeners who haven’t had the opportunity to attend an SML show to hear how the members create their singular musical mosaic in real time. Recorded in December 2025 at Los Angeles’s Zebulon as part of a series of hometown shows celebrating the release of How You Been, Spontaneous Music Live was engineered, mixed and recorded by unofficial sixth SML member Bryce Gonzales.
For people who have seen SML and sung the band’s praises, this is the album they’ve been waiting for. Spontaneous Music Live is SML in its purest form, utilizing a big canvas and making decisions on the fly over the course of two, 23-minute plus tracks. The first cut, “The Drums,” begins with SML building tension and anticipation while playing at velocity. The subsequent music is taut, swirling, joyous, hot-to-the-touch, funky, dub-y, mechanical yet futuristic, and extremely danceable. SML conducts fourth world, world-building as if the band is creating an impromptu 21st century Remain in Light. “Roundabouts,” the second track, is made up of three different grooves. Or five. Or five hundred. Throughout Spontaneous Music Live, it’s fascinating to hear the members of SML operate like a single, twenty-limbed organism while remaining individuals, who answer, encourage, push, and inspire each other towards an audacity of choices, specificity of details, and daring combinations of sounds.
Not only is Spontaneous Music Live an electrifying document of recorded music, but it’s also emblematic of this moment in improvised music. By way of illustration, earlier this year, Flea released a solo album called Honora. It was produced by Johnson and features Butterss and guitar player Jeff Parker, member of Tortoise, leader of the Jeff Parker ETA IVtet (SML’s “sister city band”), and the majordomo of the improvised music scene in Los Angeles. The appeal of Honora is the group sound of the core musicians; in other words, it sounds like music that could have been created by SML or the IVtet. Flea is a musical superstar. He can work with anyone. It’s notable that he came to the members of SML and the ETA IVtet. This is the music he wanted to make and the players he wanted to make it with.
Yet, Los Angeles isn’t the only place this is happening. Exploratory, unscripted music is being performed in the studio and live performances at clubs, arenas, and festivals around the world, to say nothing of jamband music crossing over into indie rock and vice versa. In addition to Los Angeles, other geographic nodes in the United States in which improvised music is thriving include Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, as well as numerous other pockets in cities, towns, and rural areas. At the vanguard of this movement are forward-thinking labels, such as International Anthem, who are cultivating talent and creating more opportunities for this type of music to be heard. Altogether, the supply is meeting an increasing demand by audiences, resulting in a sweet spot of artistically provocative and endlessly captivating aleatory music. Do you know you’re living in a golden age of music when you’re in it?
Stepping back from grand, sweeping statements about how SML fits into global musical trends, Spontaneous Music Live is simply a great live album by world class musicians at the height of their powers, improvising music that is in constant evolution, equal parts passionate, jittery, wistful, spooky, reflective, sexy, and ecstatic.
Recliner Notes 