More Energy Fields, Current is the result of multiple musical meetings held during 2018 and 2019. Carlos Nino and a total of 14 talented Friends jamming, generally in groups of 3 or 4. While locked down in 2020, Carlos then created what could be considered a “meta-improvisation” by fragmenting these sessions and subjecting them to further studio manipulation. Not only twisting and tweaking tones, stretching them, sometimes spinning sections backwards, but also weaving 2 years worth of music into a cohesive whole. Listening, before reading the press notes, I assumed – like Carlos` stunning Chicago Waves set – that his new offering was a concert performance, a single, live, take. 

Spiritual jazz is for sure a reference, a starting, point – with collected traditional and temple percussion shimmering like spring, summer, showers. Gongs providing the thunder. Tabla keeping time with syncopated cymbals. Their racing rhythms though reduced to microscopic movements. Snippets repeating, treated with delicate delay. Shaken by snatches of seismic sub-bass. Segueing into surf, sampled rushing fresh water. Creating this kinda cosmic dub. A calm, stoned, tropics, punctuated by occasional blasts of the full, big, band. Woodwinds, piano, mutated marimba, and modular synth musings. Saxophones in circular, breathless, spirals. All joined together in fanfares, thanking the Earth. The album opening and closing with a call for collective higher consciousness – increased innate, native, natural, awareness.  

Collage is absolutely central, key, to the process here. Carlos, the mage, sage, sonic shaman, unlocking the music’s magic. Just like Burroughs & Gysin`s poetic spoken and printed word cut-ups, releasing the recordings` truer vibrations. The beatific beauty of its 40 odd minutes of gently psychedelic, subtly psychoactive, washes of sound in the ear, squeegee-ing the third eye, of its creator, and beholder. The dharma, not the devil, in its deconstructed detail.

Carlos Nino & Friends / More Energy Fields, Current is released by International Anthem digitally today, with other formats to follow on June 25th. You can order and pre-order over at Bandcamp.