User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
- Summary: The second full-length release from Los Angeles-based quintet SML was recorded live in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle.
Buy Now
| Buy on |
|
- Record Label: International Anthem
- Genre(s): Jazz
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 7 out of 7
-
Mixed: 0 out of 7
-
Negative: 0 out of 7
-
Mar 26, 2026Throughout, the musicians seem to be cooking in their own worlds, but their parts fortuitously interlock and tasty grooves frequently arise. There’s so much going on in How You Been, and it’s all interesting.
-
Nov 12, 2025Even more so than on the already impressive Small Medium Large, SML have mastered their own musical language with How You Been.
-
Nov 12, 2025While track-sequencing can edge towards clunky territory at times, How You Been is a colourful murmuration of percussive, glacial synths and exploratory jazz interplay. Exciting, expansive and entrancing, SML are evidence of the supergroup’s enduring power.
-
Record CollectorNov 12, 2025Among the highlights, Taking Out The Trash's dissonant, Herbie Hancock-esque electronics are grounded by punk funk basslines; Stepping In/The Loop's repetitive, guitar-and-synthesizer rhythms prove giddily hypnotic while the shimmering Brood Board SHROOOM embraces celestial strains of ambient jazz. [Dec 2025, p.103]
-
MojoNov 12, 2025Hard to pin down, harder not to enjoy. [Jan 2026, p.90]
-
Dec 1, 2025There’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.
-
UncutNov 12, 2025Tracks flirt with minimalism, spiky synth-pop and krautrock while creating an entirely original sonic language. [Review of the Year 2025, p.28]