Carlos Niño & Friends - More Energy Fields, Current

 

Carlos Niño & Friends' new record, More Energy Fields, Current, is out, and you will enjoy spending some time with it. Niño is a DJ, producer and percussionist, but his most important talent appears to be his ability to pull groups of artists together and sort of inspire their best work and collaboration. This album is carefully arranged and layered to create quietly spectacular moments one after another, like the way the gently swinging but insistent drumbeat fades into a flute by way of what sounds like a treated B3 or synthesizer along with some ambient sounds (water, woods), before building to a crescendo on "Salon Winds":

   

 That video is a film by Cara Stricker, who has done videos for Blood Orange and Alicia Keys, among others, and the track was recorded at a backyard concert at Mike D's Malibu home by the team Nino assembled for this record: Jamire Williams, Nate Mercereau, Jamael Dean and Aaron Shaw. Every song on here provides an opportunity to explore new sounds or combinations of sounds, and Niño's collaborators are completely in sync. Spend some time with it, and please be sure to put on your best headphones, or find a quiet night for driving and put it on. The final track, "Please, wake up" is a reflection of the opener and it has a patient but insistent feel, and sort of gently glitches out into a quiet set of chimes, which is the perfect way to end the record:

 

 Wake up! it says. From Nino's liner notes: "We’re all in this together. I look forward to living in a much higher, much more conscious, harmonious state, here, with You, on this Magical Planet Earth.” The digital is out now, available from International Anthem and the vinyl will be out on June 25.

International Anthem Records - Bandcamp