Natural Information Society – Perseverance Flow LP

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RELEASE DATE: 10/24/2025

Announcing Perseverance Flow, the latest album from acclaimed Chicago-based ensembleNatural Information Society(NIS). After a trilogy of double LPs by expanded manifestations of the band that began in 2018 withMandatory Reality& continued throughSince Time Is Gravity(aPitchforkBest Jazz & Experimental Album of the Year selection &Mojo‘s #1 Underground Album of 2023), NIS returns to its core formation ofLisa Alvaradoon harmonium,Mikel Patrick Averyon drums,Jason Steinon bass clarinet, & composer/multi-instrumentalistJoshua Abramson guimbri for one continuous 37 minute composition across a single LP. As the rocket boosters on spaceship earth sputter closer to burnout, lower your stylus into a soundfield that grows stronger the deeper you travel into it; a dose of the medicine many of us look to music to deliver awaits you inside. One of the deep contemplations of this natural information (thanksBill Callahan) is the wide range of source materials Abrams draws from over the band’s more than 15 year history: Ideas from minimalism, modal jazz & traditional musics are regularly reimagined in these compositions. The 2021 double LPdescension (Out of Our Constrictions), with guest soloistEvan Parker, reflected aspects of Abrams’ love of party music, Chicago house, &John Coltrane. *But even veteran travelers with the NIS best brace themselves for thePerseverance Flow. Speaking to the history & the inspirations behind the album, Abrams offers: “We played the piece for a year in concert before the recording. At Electrical (Audio Studios, Chicago) we went in at 11 & were done in time to pick our kids up from school.” Abrams continues: “In a reference world, I imaginePerseverance Flowlike a live extended realization of a Jaylib lost instrumental as remixed byKevin Shields. Or vice versa. I also think it has sympathies to some of the more rhythmically intricate dance musics out of Chicago & Lisbon.” The core NIS ensemble heard onPerseverance Flowalways address Abrams’ writing with the discipline of orchestra musicians & the creativity of improvisers. But this time around, instead of inviting living legend status musicians Evan orWilliam ParkerorAri Brownas honored guests to solo freely over the composed materials, Abrams’ invited guest collaborator was the medium of the recording studio itself. Situated at the board with engineerGreg Norman, Abrams pushed post production techniques found only sporadically on earlier NIS records deep into the heart of the music, distorting & reshaping instruments to subtly &, at times, aggressively mutate timbre & texture, color & time. Refracting the band’s signature mesmerizing chains of overlapping rhythmic patterns through the sonic funhouse of dub makesPerseverance Flowthe most formally experimental NIS album to date. Now a soundworld fully unique to itself is listening to itself, consoling & humoring itself, & consoling & humoring you. A destruction myth & a creation myth of a soundworld together at once — “energetically nutritious” (October 2025 Issue 500The Wire) supernatural information society.

“Perseverance Flowis skipping rope in slo-mo. A dance of co-operation to rally guts & humors & keep marching through pouring tears” (Abrams).