Chicago Waves (IA11 Edition)

CARLOS NINO

MIGUEL ATWOOD-FERGUSON

Released 10 June 2025

International Anthem

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Channelling meditative performance into immersive sonic journeys: an expanded live set of supreme ambient-jazz.

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Carlos Niño is a Los Angeles-based producer, percussionist and spiritual jazz catalyst, known for curating open-form collaborations across ambient, improvisational and cosmic traditions. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist and arranger who is celebrated for his string work with progressive major artists like Flying Lotus and Thundercat. Together, they channel meditative performance into immersive sonic journeys.

The IA11 series by International Anthem celebrates the label’s 11th anniversary with expanded reissues, rare live recordings, and archival gems highlighting its genre-blurring, community-driven ethos in experimental jazz and beyond.

Accordingly, IA11 Edition of the pair's 2020 album The Chicago Waves is not just a reissue, it’s a restatement of purpose. Recorded live at Chicago’s Co-Prosperity Sphere in 2019, the performance captured Niño and Atwood-Ferguson at their most attuned: a real-time exchange of vibration, atmosphere, and breath.

This new International Anthem edition expands the set with an additional 14 minutes, deepening the arc from sparse emergence to radiant, resonant stillness. From the opening textures - Niño’s tuned percussion and cymbal washes - to Atwood-Ferguson’s intuitive violin sliding notes (glissandi) and radiant harmonic voicings, every moment feels intentional and fluid. The music breathes in slow cycles, occasionally swelling into near-orchestral beauty, then retreating into near-silence. It resists categorisation: not quite ambient, not exactly jazz, but inhabiting that ecstatic middle ground where feeling supersedes form.

Compared to their studio output, Chicago Waves is rawer, less adorned, more devotional. The extended final movement brings a welcome sense of closure without ever resolving into cliché. For those receptive to the pace, it’s a luminous, near-sacred experience. For others, it may drift too freely, but that’s part of its power. This is music made not to impress but to invite stillness.

Read more ... Bandcamp

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