Today, Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes — 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) — share “Arpy,” an undulating and atmospheric track imbued with a mournful glow. In this piece composed by Gregory Uhlmann (one of the group’s few tracks that isn’t a collective composition), smears of dislocated saxophone wash over a haze of interlocking guitar figures and sparkling noise, recalling the humid placidity of Fennesz’s Endless Summer or a garbled transmission of late night jazz radio.

Listen to “Arpy” here.

It’s the latest sampling from their beguiling debut album Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes (March 14 / International Anthem), a collection of eleven instrumentals that bring to life a jazz-informed take on progressive electro-acoustic chamber music. It fits firmly in the form-smashing lineage of its principals’ 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.

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.

Preorder Uhlmann, Johnson, Wilkes here.

The arc of the group’s story is one of comradery 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. The album’s transfixing first single, “Frica,” exemplifies this alchemic mix (listen here), receiving notices from folks at Hearing Things, The Quietus, Treble, Raven Sings The Blues, and more.

Uhlmann, Johnson, and Wilkes will celebrate the album’s release with live performance events to be held at Los Angeles’s Barnsdall Hall on April 16th (more info here) and at Constellation in Chicago on August 7th (more info here). More dates to come.