SML

Small Medium Large is the name of both band and record; this is a stonking debut jazz opus, not to be passed up for a second. Formed of the fallout-miasmas of two or more establishing gigs, performed at the famed ETA venue in Los Angeles, the quintet – bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann – have gone on to fill a deftly stacked chiffonier of progressive jazz here. With manifold influences from Can’s Holgar Czukay to the trance-prog of Harmonia, SML present an at-times Krauty, otherwise amusing, always seriously talent-wafting set of instrumental musings, with the establishing reverse-shots of ‘Three Over Steel’ giving sudden, sprouty rise to a major-key, synthjazz stamen, and the likes of ‘Herbie For Commercials’ and ‘Search Bar Hi Hat’ musing on the foibles of modern day jazz musicianship – hack composers, sample-pack beats – tied up in an all-round tragi-comi-phonic, silky-slick bow.