During concerts, Carlos Niño sometimes sets up a bass drum and floor tom, but his percussion is far from traditional. Uninterested in maintaining a steady beat, he creates shimmering atmospheres and earthy atmospheres. The many bells, seashells, rainsticks, or rattle textures he carries around in his big black roller bag. He is surrounded by cymbals and gongs. He shakes dry palm leaves. It involves wind chimes.
A fixture in the Los Angeles music scene for nearly 30 years, Niño has become an important practitioner of what he calls “spiritual, improvisational space collage music.” (Perhaps the most relevant genre is spiritual his jazz.) He is a beacon of energy and knowledge, able to put you in touch with the city’s transformative saxophonist and tell you the name of the master acupuncturist. He’s also prolific, with seven of his releases arriving from various projects in the past eight months alone. His latest work “Placenta” is scheduled to be released on May 24th.
On a recent afternoon at Endless Color, a cafe and record store near Niño’s home in Topanga, Calif., he enthusiastically and enthusiastically recommended both the menu and the records. A multicolored knitted hat was worn over his wavy brown hair. Wispy gray hairs flowed through the bushy beard that radiated from his face.
Niño, 47, is an instrumentalist and producer, as well as a beatmaker, terrestrial and online radio DJ, record collector, and venue programmer. But most of all he is a listener. “There are many times in my life when there is literally no music flowing, but I still feel the flow of sound,” he said. “Essentially, I’m in the flow. I’ve never left the stream, which is nice in a way.”
Guitarist Nate Marsello, who frequently collaborates with Niño, said that while listening is an important part of their dynamic, it’s far from a passive experience. “It’s about listening to yourself and making it part of your communication,” he said. “It’s not just something you receive, it’s like waves within waves going towards each other and inward.”
The influence of Niño’s approach is beginning to be felt outside of his rather niche creative pocket. He was an integral part of the production of Andre 3000’s unexpected flute-based debut solo effort, New Blue Sun (2023). Niño produced the album with Andre and also co-wrote the music. He also assembled other musicians to appear on it and perform in live shows.
“This is a true collective, and that’s what I really dig about what we’re doing. And when I met Carlos, he said that in front of me,” Andre said. said in a telephone interview. “And more than that, I always want to meet people who are crazier than me. People who say ideas, they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Alright, let’s go. ‘”
Born in Santa Monica and raised in the San Fernando Valley neighborhoods of Reseda and Canoga Park in the ’80s and early ’90s, Niño was into break dancing and spent a lot of time at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, typical of his time. I did. The mall was used during the filming of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Before he entered his teens, an older cousin began to expand his world. Painter Ernest Potdevin took Niño to concerts and clubs in parts of Los Angeles he couldn’t get to on his skateboard, exposing him to the endless jazz of artists like John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. “He might have been listening to ‘Giant Steps’ and INXS on the same day,” Niño recalls. “You might have listened to Run DMC and the Fat Boys and then heard ‘Heavy Weather’ on Weather.”
While in high school, he got a job at Reseda’s public library, where he researched his favorite musicians and spent most of his paycheck on old records. He noticed an improvisation-based connection between his jazz heroes and emerging rap masters like Freestyle Fellowship. He began making crude mixes of songs he recorded from the radio, and at age 18 North started his own show on his Hollywood station, KPFK, which continued for 20 years. In his early 20s, he was one of the founding DJs of Dublab, a pioneering streaming station.
Niño began recording music as a teenager, initially using a four-track recorder with three feature tracks. As the decades passed and he grew in confidence as a musician and performer, his circle of collaborators expanded to include South African composer Thandi Ntuli and multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. . He also attracted older mentors like jazz percussionist Adam Rudolph, ambient architect Laraji, and New Age foundational artist Iasos, who passed away earlier this year.
Since 2011, many of his albums have been credited to Carlos Niño & Friends (a fitting name for his emotion-driven approach). “If I invited them over to my house, I’d probably make a record with them,” Niño said.
Mercer said artists are drawn to Niño’s atmosphere. He brings a lot of real connections. He brings a lot of support. He opens up to people. ”
At first, Niño wasn’t sure if Andre 3000 would be that person. He had heard that the Outkast rapper had moved to Venice, California, and had seen a video on social media of him playing the flute alone while walking down a city street. “I thought, oh, he’s traveling, he’s having an adventure,” Niño recalled. “He’s reached something really deep and inspirational to him, and I felt that resonated with me.”
Niño decided that if the two were going to meet, it would happen naturally. And it happened at Erewhon grocery store. Niño introduced himself and invited Andre to the Alice Coltrane tribute he had organized with keyboardist Surya Botfasina. Coincidentally, Andre was listening to Coltrane’s music on repeat last week. Soon he entered Niño’s garage with his flute, and their sessions evolved into “New Blue Sun.”
“It felt like a discovery, and it was new to me,” Andre said. “That’s what I’m really drawn to. Whatever it was, it was honest.” He plans to release more of the music they recorded in the near future.
“Placenta,” the latest LP from the Carlos Niño & Friends collection, offers a different perspective on parenthood. Niño was inspired by the recent birth of his son Moss and how he felt when his first child Azul was born 24 years ago. But instead of focusing on his own experience, Niño says that “Placenta” is about his partner, Anneliese, and all the doulas, midwives, and birth workers who help bring life into this world. We wanted to celebrate and support.
Niño said of the period following Moss’s arrival: “There was so much closeness and intimacy, sound and emotion.” “And the connections with the people involved were very strong.”
The album is both gentle and overwhelming, like the early months of parenthood. “Moonlight Watsu in Dub” finds an easy rhythm among the echoing clatter and sounds of nature, while “Generous Pelvis” soars over Sam Gendel’s swirling saxophone. The final 17-minute “Play Kerri Chandler’s RAIN” was built from a live performance by Niño, Merserau and Botofasina with vocalist Kavanagh Lee in Cologne, Germany, before reaching a safe landing spot. , twisted with anticipation and anxiety.
“This is also a tribute to the greatness of how we got here. We have to be on the inside and somehow get out,” Niño said. “The placenta is always present in that process.”
For Niño, making music is a spiritual practice, which he considers to be his calling and which he happily embraces. “I’m interested in actually communicating and trying to find common ground, so that when people are getting very greedy with each other, too competitive, too violent… We can reduce the tremendous amount of suffering that occurs,” he said, before finishing his sentence. He rolled out of his mouth. “I’m really interested in expressing something else.”
