Review
Unexpected bursts of audience applause occasionally puncture the kinetic funk of How You Been, abruptly reminding listeners that SML’s elaborate constructions are actually culled from live improvisations. Recording across several cities, the Los Angeles quintet treats on-stage performances as raw material, slicing and stitching disparate jams into airtight compositions. The resulting blend of modular synthesis, polyrhythmic percussion, and freewheeling bass cements their reputation as a vital modernist ensemble.
Critics have enthusiastically embraced this live-hybrid approach. Pitchfork notes that "[t]here's electricity in this music—literally coursing through guitar pedals, samplers, Eurorack modules, and the DAWs used in post-production, but also between the five musicians themselves." The album's dense arrangements pivot unpredictably, matching organic instruments with bleeping electronics. For The Quietus, the record reveals a "colourful murmuration of percussive, glacial synths and exploratory jazz interplay," while Uncut observes that these dynamic tracks "flirt with minimalism, spiky synth-pop and krautrock while creating an entirely original sonic language."
