\n<\/p>\n
During concerts, Carlos Ni\u00f1o<\/a> may set up a bass drum and a floor tom, but his percussion is far from conventional. Uninterested in maintaining a steady beat, he creates shimmering atmospheres and earthen <\/strong>textures with the many bells, shells, rain sticks or rattles he totes in a big black roller bag. He surrounds himself with cymbals and gongs. He shakes desiccated palm fronds. Wind chimes are involved.<\/p>\n A fixture in the Los Angeles music world for nearly 30 years, Ni\u00f1o has become a key practitioner of what he calls \u201cspiritual, improvisational, space collage music.\u201d (The genre it\u2019s probably most related to is spiritual jazz.) He\u2019s a beacon of energy and knowledge who can get in touch with the city\u2019s transformative saxophonists and give you the name of a master acupuncturist. He\u2019s also prolific, with seven releases from various projects arriving over the past eight months alone. His latest, \u201cPlacenta,\u201d<\/a> is due on May 24.<\/p>\n On a recent afternoon at Endless Color, a cafe and record store near Ni\u00f1o\u2019s home in Topanga, Calif., he was effusive and enthusiastic, recommending both menu items and vinyl. A multicolored knit cap sat atop his wavy brown hair. Wisps of gray ran through the bushy beard radiating from his face.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Along with being an instrumentalist and a producer, Ni\u00f1o, 47, has been a beatmaker, a D.J. on both terrestrial and online radio, a record collector and a venue programmer. But most of all, he is a listener. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of times where there\u2019s literally no music playing in my life, but I still feel the current of sound,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m in the stream, essentially. I\u2019m not really ever not in the stream, which is kind of awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Nate Mercereau, a guitarist who has become one of Ni\u00f1o\u2019s frequent collaborators, said listening is a crucial part of their dynamic, but it\u2019s far from a passive experience. \u201cIt\u2019s listening to yourself and letting that be part of the communication,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a receiving thing, it\u2019s like waves within waves towards each other and within.\u201d<\/p>\n The influence of Ni\u00f1o\u2019s approach is beginning to be felt outside of his fairly niche creative pocket. He was essential to the making of \u201cNew Blue Sun\u201d (2023), the unexpected first solo record from Andr\u00e9 3000, based around flutes. Ni\u00f1o produced the album with Andr\u00e9 and co-wrote the music. He also assembled the other musicians who appear on it and perform at the live shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a true collective, and that\u2019s what I really dig about what we\u2019re doing, and when I met Carlos, he put that in front of me,\u201d Andr\u00e9 said in a phone interview. \u201cAnd even more than that, I always like to meet people that are crazier than me. People that say ideas and it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh hell yeah. Let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Born in Santa Monica and raised in the San Fernando Valley neighborhoods of Reseda and Canoga Park during the \u201980s and early \u201990s, Ni\u00f1o had the era-typical experiences of getting into break dancing and spending lots of time at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the mall used during the filming of \u201cFast Times at Ridgemont High.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Before he entered his teens, his older cousin began opening up his world. Ernesto Potdevin, a painter, took him to concerts and clubs in parts of Los Angeles that Ni\u00f1o couldn\u2019t get to on his skateboard and exposed him to the boundless jazz of artists like John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. \u201cI might\u2019ve listened to \u2018Giant Steps\u2019 and INXS in the same day,\u201d Ni\u00f1o recalled. \u201cI might\u2019ve listened to Run-DMC and the Fat Boys, and then listened to \u2018Heavy Weather\u2019 by Weather Report.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While in high school, he got a job at Reseda\u2019s public library, where he studied up on the musicians he loved and spent most of his paycheck on old records. He recognized the improvisation-based connection between his jazz heroes and emerging rap virtuosos like Freestyle Fellowship. He started making crude mixes of songs he recorded off the radio, and at 18 he began his own show at the North Hollywood station KPFK and kept it going for two decades. In his early 20s, he was one of the founding D.J.s at Dublab, the pioneering streaming station.<\/p>\n Ni\u00f1o began recording music when he was a teenager, initially using a four-track recorder with three functional tracks. Over the decades, as he became more confident as a musician and performer, his circle of collaborators expanded to include the South African composer Thandi Ntuli and the multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. It also swept up elder mentors like the jazz percussionist Adam Rudolph, the ambient architect Laraaji<\/a>, and Iasos<\/a>, the foundational new age artist who died earlier this year.<\/p>\n Since 2011, many of his albums have been credited to Carlos Ni\u00f1o & Friends, an apt name for his feelings-based approach. \u201cIf I\u2019d invite them over to my house, I probably would make a record with them,\u201d Ni\u00f1o said.<\/p>\n Mercereau said artists are drawn to Ni\u00f1o\u2019s vibe: \u201cHe brings a lot of enthusiasm. He brings a lot of actual connection. He brings a lot of support. He opens people up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At first, Ni\u00f1o didn\u2019t know if Andr\u00e9 3000 would be one of those people. He\u2019d heard the Outkast rapper had moved to Venice, Calif., and had seen videos on social media of him playing his flute alone as he walked the city\u2019s streets. \u201cI was like, oh, he\u2019s journeying, he\u2019s on a quest,\u201d Ni\u00f1o remembered. \u201cHe\u2019s getting to something that\u2019s really deep and inspiring for him, and it felt resonant with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Ni\u00f1o decided that if they were meant to meet, it would happen naturally. And then it did, at an Erewhon grocery store. Ni\u00f1o introduced himself and invited Andr\u00e9 to an Alice Coltrane tribute that he and the keyboardist Surya Botofasina had put together. Andr\u00e9 coincidentally had been listening to Coltrane\u2019s music on repeat for the past week. Soon he was in Ni\u00f1o\u2019s garage with his flutes, and their sessions developed into \u201cNew Blue Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like discovery, it felt new to me,\u201d Andr\u00e9 said. \u201cThat\u2019s really what I gravitate towards. No matter what it was, it was honest.\u201d He plans to release more of the music they\u2019ve recorded in the near future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPlacenta,\u201d the latest LP in the Carlos Ni\u00f1o & Friends collection, offers a different perspective on parenthood. Ni\u00f1o was inspired by the recent arrival of his son Moss as well as his feelings when his first child, Azul, was born 24 years earlier. But instead of centering his own experience, Ni\u00f1o wanted \u201cPlacenta\u201d to celebrate and support his partner, Annelise, as well as all the doulas, midwives and birth workers who help bring life into this world.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was just so much closeness and intimacy and sound and feeling,\u201d Ni\u00f1o said of the time period after Moss\u2019s arrival, \u201cand so much connection with the people that were involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The album, like the early months of parenthood, can be both serene and overwhelming. \u201cMoonlight Watsu in Dub\u201d finds an easy rhythm among echoey clatter and nature sounds, while \u201cGenerous Pelvis\u201d soars over Sam Gendel\u2019s swirling saxophone. The 17-minute closer \u201cPlay Kerri Chandler\u2019s RAIN\u201d \u2014 built off a live performance by Ni\u00f1o, Mercereau and Botofasina in K\u00f6ln, Germany, with the vocalist Cavana Lee \u2014 twists with anticipation and uncertainty before reaching a safe landing place.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is also a tribute to the majesty of how we get here \u2014 you have to be inside and you have to emerge somehow,\u201d Ni\u00f1o said. \u201cIn that process there\u2019s always a placenta.\u201d<\/p>\n To Ni\u00f1o, making music is a spiritual practice, one that he considers his calling and gladly accepts. \u201cI\u2019m interested in actually communing and trying to find the common ground so we can reduce the massive amounts of suffering that happen when people are so hyper-greedy and hypercompetitive and hyper-violent with each other,\u201d he said, the words quickly tumbling out of his mouth. \u201cI\u2019m really interested in representing something else.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n