Today, Natural Information Society — the ensemble led by Joshua Abrams that’s established itself as “a driving force in Chicago’s vibrant jazz, post-rock, indie, and creative music scene” (NPR Music) — announces Perseverance Flow, a new album due out October 24 via eremite Records (North America), Aguirre Records (EU), and New Soil Music (streaming).

Listen to a passage from Perseverance Flow here.

Pre-order / Pre-save Perseverance Flow here.

Announcing Perseverance Flow, the latest album from acclaimed Chicago-based ensemble Natural Information Society (NIS). After a trilogy of double LPs by expanded manifestations of the band that began in 2018 with Mandatory Reality and continued through Since Time Is Gravity (a Pitchfork Best Jazz & Experimental Album of the Year selection & MOJO’s #1 Underground Album of 2023), NIS returns to its core formation of Lisa Alvarado on harmonium, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, & composer/multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams on guimbri for one continuous 37-minute composition across a single LP. As the rocket boosters on spaceship earth sputter closer to burnout, lower your stylus into a soundfield that grows stronger the deeper you travel into it; a dose of the medicine many of us look to music to deliver awaits you inside.

One of the deep contemplations of this natural information (thanks Bill Callahan) is the wide range of source materials Abrams draws from over the band’s more than 15 year history: Ideas from minimalism, modal jazz & traditional musics are regularly reimagined in these compositions. The 2021 double LP descension (Out of Our Constrictions), with guest soloist Evan Parker, reflected aspects of Abrams’ love of party music, Chicago house, and John Coltrane. But even veteran travelers with the NIS best brace themselves for the Perseverance Flow.

Speaking to the history and the inspirations behind the album, Abrams offers: “We played the piece for a year in concert before the recording. At Electrical (Audio Studios, Chicago) we went in at 11 & were done in time to pick our kids up from school.” Abrams continues: “In a reference world, I imagine Perseverance Flow like a live extended realization of a Jaylib lost instrumental as remixed by Kevin Shields. Or vice versa. I also think it has sympathies to some of the more rhythmically intricate dance musics out of Chicago & Lisbon.”

The core NIS ensemble heard on Perseverance Flow always addresses Abrams’ writing with the discipline of orchestra musicians and the creativity of improvisers. But this time around, instead of inviting living legend status musicians Evan or William Parker or Ari Brown as honored guests to solo freely over the composed materials, Abrams’ invited guest collaborator was the medium of the recording studio itself. Situated at the board with engineer Greg Norman, Abrams pushed post-production techniques found only sporadically on earlier NIS records deep into the heart of the music, distorting and reshaping instruments to subtly and, at times, aggressively mutate timbre and texture, color and time.

Refracting the band’s signature mesmerizing chains of overlapping rhythmic patterns through the sonic funhouse of dub makes Perseverance Flow the most formally experimental NIS album to date. Now a soundworld fully unique to itself is listening to itself, consoling and humoring itself, and consoling and humoring you. A destruction myth and a creation myth of a soundworld together at once —”energetically nutritious” (October 2025 Issue 500 The Wire) supernatural information society.

“Perseverance Flow is skipping rope in slo-mo. A dance of co-operation to rally guts & humors & keep marching through pouring tears” (Abrams).

Among the defining projects in 21st century underground music, Natural Information Society has released seven albums on eremite to great critical acclaim, and, for Drag City, two collaborative albums with Bitchin’ Bajas. Since returning to bandstands in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Natural Information Society has performed at Big Ears, Pitchfork Music, Guelph Jazz, and Jazztopad Festivals (2022), the Vision Festival, Jazz em Agosto, Le Guess Who, & Jazzfest Berlin (2023), FIMAV, Hyde Park Jazz, & Jardin Sonoro Festivals at Instituo Inhotim (2024). The band has performed in conjunction with exhibitions of Lisa Alvarado’s visual work at venues including REDCAT (Disney CalArts), Wadsworth Atheneum, Moody Center, and The Kitchen.

Perseverance Flow arrives October 24 via the following channels: audiophile-quality vinyl format (Americas) and Bandcamp via eremite records; vinyl (EU) and CD via Aguirre/eremite records; and on streaming platforms via New Soil Music. Meditation, Momentum, & Manifestation, New Soil Music’s mood- and energy-based journeys through Natural Information Society’s historical eremite recordings, are on streaming platforms now.