Placenta Carlos Niño & Friends

• 1Love to all Doulas!03:53
• 2Some rest for the Midwives . . .07:19
• 3Real Vital Organs03:58
• 4Surges, Expansions02:43
• 5In Appreciation of Chico Hamilton’s Vast Influence on the West Coast Sound02:44
• 6Birthworkers Magic, and how we get hear . . .07:22
• 7This “I” was not02:37
• 8Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy09:03
• 9Carla's Beads01:52
• 10Moonlight Watsu in Dub04:34
• 11Generous Pelvis04:27
• 12Bi-Location09:08
• 13“Play Kerri Chandler’s RAIN”17:33
• Total Runtime01:17:13

Info for Placenta

Placenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño & Friends music released on International Anthem in the last four years. It is also the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño & Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, co-creating/playing, and co-mixing every song.

Placenta is announced on April 11th, 2024, a date chosen because it is the 1st solar return of Moss Niño (a new being in human form, who Carlos and his partner Annelise are Earth parents of). Their experience of pregnancy, labor and delivery were all profoundly impactful for Carlos. Becoming a father again (a whole 24 years after the birth of Azul Niño, who has become a regular artistic collaborator with Carlos) he felt total Inspiration for this set of recordings, and hence it is perhaps the most conceptually-grounded Carlos Niño & Friends album we've yet to present – fully connected to the spirit of family, birth, and "how we get here."

Nate Mercereau, french Horn and collage (track 1)
Jamire Williams, drums (track 2)
Sam Gendel, alto saxophone, pedals (track 2)
Jamael Dean, organ (track 3)
Dexter Story, drums (track 4)
Nate Mercereau, guitar synth, pedals (track 4, 5)
Brandon Eugene Owens, bowed bass (track 4)
Maia, concert flute, voice (track 6)
André 3000, quetzacoatl flute, pedals (track 6)
Jesse Peterson, guimbri, pedals (track 6)
Ariel Kalma, voice (track 7)
Surya Botofasina, organ (track 7)
Annelise, percussion (track 7)
Haize Hawke, voice (track 8)
Surya Botofasina, synths (track 8)
Jesse Peterson, (sped up) Aerophones (track 8)
Aaron Shaw, (sped up) tenor saxophone (track 8)
Devin Daniels, alto saxophone (track 8)
Tiffany de Leon, voice (track 8)
Michael Bolger, accordion (track 8)
Michael Alvidrez, bass (track 8)
Annelise and Moss, voices (track 8)
Iasos, Celestial Instruments (track 9)
Nate Mercereau, guitar synth, pedals (track 10)
Photay, drums (track 10)

Produced, Mixed, Edited, and Arranged by Carlos Niño

Carlos Niño
A prolific album Producer, expansive Percussionist, experimental Composer, connector, communicator, Carlos Niño is known primarily for his main project Carlos Niño & Friends, and for his extensive work on André 3000's New Blue Sun. Previously Niño made albums as/with Ammoncontact, Build An Ark, The Life Force Trio, and others. Niño cites Iasos, Laraaji, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, Adam Rudolph, Idris Ackamoor, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Yusef Lateef, Alice Coltrane, Airto, Kamau Daaood, Dwight Trible, Dexter Story, Jesse Peterson, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Jamire Williams, Deantoni Parks, Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau, and André 3000 as among his “closest Mentors, Influences, Elders, and peers, all of whom I know well, (or at least met several times,) in this life . . ."

Niño describes his "Carlos Niño & Friends" sound as "Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage.” He qualifies: "Why Spiritual? Because there is always a spiritual intention and center, feeling and vibrational message in these records. Why Improvisational? Because I approach the making of this music without any preconceived structures, I just open up to what I am hearing and feeling and experiment until I get the pieces where I want them. The preparation and information in the improvisations is our whole lives. It's an open state of communication. Why Space Collage? Because it's all about relationship and perspective, interval, layering, moving, listening, and massaging the mixes…" ...

This album contains no booklet.