Video: Carlos Niño & Friends Share Concert Film From 'Placenta' LA Release Show

As a new entry into the online edition of International Anthem’s zine Tracing the Lines, they have shared a concert film by Azul Niño that documents Carlos Niño & Friends' live performance at 2220 Arts in Los Angeles on Friday May 24, 2024. This performance was the release show for Carlos's sprawling and immersive ode to the birth workers of the world, Placenta.

The full web piece also includes Haize Hawke and Annelise Niño's words and reflections on the live performance and the all-encompassing experience of love, pregnancy, and birth, alongside photos from the 2220 Arts show by Lani Trock, all of which was originally published in the print version of Issue No. 3 of Tracing The Lines. Order a copy of the zine here.

Niño is also on tour throughout March, including a residency at Planetarium in Queens, NY, and culminating in Knoxville, Tennessee at the legendary BIG EARS festival, where he will do a run of performances and events as part of a special residency with the festival. See below for all dates and find tickets here.

Carlos Niño March 2025 Tour

March 20
Carlos Niño & Friends at Planetarium, Queens NY
(SOLD OUT) 

March 21
Carlos Niño & Friends at Planetarium, Queens NY
(SOLD OUT)

March 22
Carlos Niño & Friends at Planetarium, Queens NY
(SOLD OUT)

March 23
Carlos Niño & Friends at Ars Nova Workshop, Philadelphia, PA
(Tickets)

March 25
Nate Mercereau ft. Carlos Niño + Jayve Montgomery at The Blue Room, Nashville, TN 
(Tickets)

Carlos Niño IN RESIDENCE at Big Ears Festival

March 27
Carlos Niño & Friends
w/ Idris Ackamoor, Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina, Adam Rudolph, & Josh Johnson

March 28
Carlos Niño & Friends Salon Night 1
Subtle Movements Trio w/ Carlos Niño, Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau & Special Guest

March 29
Carlos Niño & Friends Salon Night 2
First and Last Time Trio w/ Carlos Niño, Laraaji & Idris Ackamoor

March 30
CN&F x IARC
special event w/ details TBA

ABOUT 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 was announced on April 11th, 2024, the 1st solar return of Carlos and his partner Annelise’s new Earth child Moss Niño. 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 Visual Arts collaborator with Carlos) he felt total inspiration for this set of recordings, and hence it is perhaps the most conceptually-grounded & Friends album we've yet to present – fully connected to the spirit of family, birth, and "how we get here."

Placenta features many musicians living and working in Los Angeles – the community which Niño is deeply rooted in, himself. Some live in other parts of the world; almost all are longtime friends and collaborators of Niño’s. In order of their appearance on the album, featured artists on Placenta include: Nate Mercereau, Jamire Williams, Sam Gendel, Jamael Dean, Dexter Story, Brandon Eugene Owens, Maia, André 3000, Jesse Peterson, Ariel Kalma, Surya Botofasina, Annelise, Haize Hawke, Aaron Shaw, Devin Daniels, Tiffany de Leon, Michael Bolger, Michael Alvidrez, Moss, Iasos, Photay, Deantoni Parks, Adam Rudolph, Andres Renteria, and Cavana Lee.

ABOUT CARLOS NIÑO

Carlos Niño is a Los Angeles-based percussionist, album producer, connector, and radical empath. Over the past 25 years, he’s been a central figure in LA’s musicker community, having produced countless live events, numerous bands and many recording projects. He doesn't confine himself within genres, and is adamant that, for him, friendships make the greatest creative collaborations.

A prolific album Producer, expansive Percussionist, experimental Composer, connector, communicator, Niño is known primarily for his main project Carlos Niño & Friends, and for his extensive work on André 3000 New Blue Sun. Previously Niño made albums as/with Ammoncontact, Build An Ark, The Life Force Trio, and others. Niño sites 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…"

Photo credit: Todd Weaver

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