Today, International Anthem announces Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes, the debut album out March 14 from the Los Angeles trio of guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (SML, Perfume Genius), saxophonist Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet & New Breed, Meshell Ndegeocello), and bassist Sam Wilkes (Sam Gendel, Louis Cole, Chaka Khan).

With these 11 instrumental songs, Uhlmann, Johnson, and Wilkes explore a spacious lyrical curiosity, a jazz-informed take on progressive electro-acoustic chamber music. It’s redolent of the form-smashing ingenuity they’ve exhibited in past projects — from Music For Saxofone and Bass Guitar, Wilkes’ beloved collaboration with Sam Gendel put out by Leaving Records in 2018, to last year’s Small Medium Large, the breathtaking debut from Uhlmann and Johnson’s group SML — that have become era-defining documents of Los Angeles’s thriving new jazz scene.

Preorder Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes here.

Conceived during two live shows at ETA (recorded by Bryce Gonzales) and a session at Uhlmann’s house in Los Angeles, Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes’s skeletal grooves and ghostly moods revel in a kind of minimal, post-modern swing. Even in its more metaphysical and contemplative moments, the album’s compositional restraint feels daring and alluring, inviting close appreciation of Uhlmann’s fingerpicked electric guitar, the hybrid rhythm-lead of Wilkes’ bass chording, or the harmonic world-building of Johnson’s transmogrified alto saxophone.

The album’s first single, “Frica,” is transfixing — a choppy bass groove, chirping sax melodies, and tone sculptures that provide its narcotic, physics-defying climax. Incorporating staccato stutters and repetitions heard throughout the album, the track doubles down with a subtly disorienting post-production chop by Johnson, which accentuates the trio’s live trance by introducing a floating-phrase-cut’n’mix on the SP-404.

Listen to “Frica” here.

The fact that these concepts are employed intuitively, pre-edit, throughout Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes is precisely what makes the post-production shine. It can be difficult to discern what is a slip of the sampler and what is live, turn-on-a-dime action, and it’s exactly that mystery which draws us in.

The trio’s explorations are rooted in more than just musicality, though. The arc of the group’s story is one of friendship and mutual admiration. That instantaneous cualidad simpático is what makes this Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes trio special. A friendship between high-level improvisers is translated into musical moments, and executed with such curious precision that the lines between supposed opposites — composition and improvisation, jazz and chamber music, ennui and contentment — are delightfully blurred.

Uhlmann, Johnson, and Wilkes will celebrate the album’s release with a live performance at Los Angeles’s Barnsdall Hall on April 16th — more info here.