Today, poet/vocalist Saul Williams and percussionist/producer Carlos Niño share “The Water Is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad . . .” featuring poet aja monet. It’s the second single from Williams and Niño’s first collaborative album Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople, out August 28 via International Anthem.

Atop hovering vibraphone tones from Maia and swirling woodwinds by Kamasi Washington and Aaron Shaw, aja monet gives a soft apocalyptic reading of a piece from her notebook, “The Water Is Rising.” Williams follows her foreboding words with a solemnly hopeful return — a parable about a firing squad, where one member’s dilemma is a “system of belief” allowing for humanity in the heart of an oppressor.

Listen to “The Water Is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad . . .” and preorder Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople here.

Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople was recorded live underneath black walnut and oak trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024. The performance, which was organized by Noah Klein of Living Earth on the grounds of longstanding conservationist organization TreePeople, was the first of its kind for Williams and Niño, who have been friends since the late 1990s.

For the occasion, Niño assembled and directed an ensemble of frequent collaborators including Nate Mercereau (Guitar Synthesizer, Live Sampling with Midi Guitar, Sample Sources), Aaron Shaw (Flute, Soprano Saxophone with Pedals, Tenor Saxophone), Andres Renteria (Bells, Congas, Egyptian Rattle Drum, Hand Drums, Percussion), Maia (Flute, Vibraphone, Voice), Francesca Heart (Computer, Conch Shell, Sound Design), and Kamasi Washington (Tenor Saxophone).

Williams’ inspired poetics both fit seamlessly and guide clairvoyantly the electro-acoustic ecosystem created by Niño & Friends – a constellation of deep connections and intersecting linkups from complementary sound makers. There’s the dialogue between not just Niño & Williams but Niño and Renteria’s reciprocal percussions, the intergenerational woodwind counterpoint between Washington and Shaw, and the hovering harmonics of Maia’s vibraphone in aerial resonance with Francesca Heart’s digital designs. Heart’s sounds also make a beautiful analogue to synth-guitarist Nate Mercereau, whose live sampling and manipulation techniques turn fleeting moments of sonic presence into musical architecture in real time.

Deepening the dimensionality of this constellation, Mercereau and Niño are several years into a shared musical simpatico that has yielded dozens of collaborations (including their work together on André 3000’s New Blue Sun, and their recent Openness Trio album alongside saxophonist Josh Johnson released via Blue Note Records) making their particular interaction on this recording as spiritual and transcendent as it is subtle and implicit. And there is yet another connection to be highlighted still.

Late in the set, Williams shares an extended reflection on the Dutch East India Trade Company, the indigenous Lenape people on the island of Manahatta, the origins of Wall Street, and a prayer for the end of empire as he incites an epic crescendo from the ensemble, swirling behind the twin winds of Shaw and Washington, spirited by his repeated call “I’ve seen enough.” The smoke has only begun to clear from this emotional apex as Williams passes the torch to poet aja monet, who arrests the atmosphere with today’s “The Water Is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad . . .”