SML's Jeremiah Chiu Announces Debut Solo LP 'Edge Conditions' for October Release
Jeremiah Chiu, the synthesist of Los Angeles improv quintet SML, has announced his debut solo album as a composer. Titled Edge Conditions, the record arrives via International Anthem, the Chicago-based label that has released Chiu's work since 2023. Pitchfork
The rollout follows a staggered schedule. Physical editions and digital download will be available on 9 October, but the album will not reach streaming platforms — DSPs, the digital service providers like Spotify and Apple Music that most listeners use — until 27 October. That gap, unusual in an era of simultaneous worldwide drops, gives vinyl buyers and download customers an 18-day head start.
The lead single, 'Plastic Mind / Elastic Machines', arrived alongside the announcement. It pairs field recordings from Takako Minekawa with a beat from Booker Stardrum, Chiu's bandmate in SML. An animated video for the track was drawn and directed by Korey Martin, who also illustrated the album cover.
Edge Conditions brings in a sizeable roster of players. Marta Sofia Honer, Ben Lumsdaine on percussion, trumpeter Marquis Hill, Resavoir's Will Miller, and Patrick Shiroishi on saxophone and field recordings all feature on the record. Honer's name will be familiar to followers of Chiu's catalogue: the two released Recordings from the Åland Islands on International Anthem in 2022, with a follow-up, Different Rooms, slated for June 2025 on the same label, according to their booking agency's artist page.
Chiu's prior solo release, In Electric Time, came out on International Anthem on 29 September 2023, a 12-track collection that included pieces like 'ElectroComp 101,' 'Seawater Swell,' and 'A Cloud Song,' per the label's Bandcamp page. Edge Conditions is positioned as his first solo LP explicitly credited as a composer's work rather than a modular-synth recording project.
Chiu has also teased a U.S. tour behind the album. Confirmed stops include Chicago's Plantasia, New York's Public Records, and Los Angeles' Zebulon, according to Pitchfork. Further dates have not yet been announced.
For listeners already tuned in to International Anthem's catalogue — a roster that sits at the intersection of jazz, electronic, and experimental music — the assembling players on Edge Conditions will read as a natural extension of that world. Hill and Miller both move in Chicago's improvising community, and Shiroishi is a fixture of the Los Angeles scene. What the record sounds like in full remains to be heard on 9 October.
