David Ralfe
Just had to get a physical copy mailed over to the UK, even though it's costing me a fortune in postage! I discovered this album by chance and it's one of the most beautiful records I've heard in years. My partner and I are having a baby in a few months and I'm getting a stack of beautiful records ready to listen to with my new son/daughter. This will be top of the pile.
- *black 12" vinyl LP
- *includes printed photo insert
w/additional notes provided by Carlos Niño
- *design by Kristian Henson
Includes unlimited streaming of And So It Is
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/48kHz.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
$30USDor more
Cassette + Digital Album
*now shipping
*cassette edition limited to 100
*typography and layout by Kristian Henson
*cover photography by Sam Lee
*clear cassette shell, white padprint ink
Includes unlimited streaming of And So It Is
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 24-bit/48kHz.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
$15USDor more
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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By no means a secret, (and in steady demand,) but certainly in the category of IYKYK, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Shaw is one of Los Angeles’s brightest young Composers, Producers, Arrangers, Band Leaders, and Music Directors. In his Home Studio that he shares with his older Brother, Lawrence (together making up the group Black Nile), Shaw can be found playing Saxophones, Clarinets, Flutes, Keyboards, Drum Machines, and also Engineering Sessions. A frequent fixture at The World Stage in Leimert Park, Shaw has collaborated with everyone from Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Phil Ranelin, Herbie Hancock, and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, to Mary J. Blige, Dave Chapelle, Tyler, The Creator, Anderson .Paak, Nightmares on Wax and many more less well known OG, established, emerging, and underground Artists in the LA Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rap, Electronic, and Experimental Music scenes. Born and raised in Ladera Heights, he cut his teeth at the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center and the LA County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) before eventually entering the tutelage of Kamasi Washington, who he is featured with in tandem Musical conversation on the entirety of the 2025 release Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople. After years of study, dedication, and gig-work, the path to his first full-length release proved to be a perilous one. And So It Is, out February 13th on Leaving Records, documents the physical, musical, and spiritual transformation thrust upon an already extraordinary talent.
In 2023, at age 27, and after months of troubling symptoms and medical dead-ends, Shaw was diagnosed with bone marrow failure—a state of affairs he succinctly describes as “grim.” To say nothing of the alienation, exhaustion, and fear that accompanies such a diagnosis—the endless testing and treatment protocols—Shaw’s very capacity to play music, the craft to which he had consciously dedicated his life since the sixth grade, was suddenly, radically altered. The key matter was Shaw’s red blood cell count, and his incapacity to produce sufficient oxygen. Breath, the activating force of the wind instrument, was now in short supply. A once-normal gig became a medical gamble. How many stairs to the stage? Could he play in Idyllwild’s higher altitude?
The subsequent process of acceptance was fraught and non-linear (as major health journeys tend to be), characterized by periods of emotional exhaustion (crying spells, social isolation), as well as brave attempts to troubleshoot his limitations (experimenting with new mouthpieces and reeds, changing his posture). Initially frustrated by the resultant changes to his sound, Shaw pushed through. Playing music was still his primary source of solace. Through this self-therapy, and within the constraints of a new playing style, songs began to coalesce. “And So It Is,” a saying Shaw traces back to a childhood immersed in church music, became the mantra for this creative period, and eventually the collection’s title.
Under the nurturing eye of Leaving Record’s affiliate Carlos Niño (percussionist and, notably, the Producer for Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun) And So It Is slowly took shape—An eight song cycle that plums the depths of despair and isolation, as well as the strange clarity that comes from confronting one’s mortality. The aptly-titled first track, “Soul Journey” orients the listener. An initially off-kilter, ruminative, almost rainswept movement gives way to a more focused and propulsive mid-section (one senses grit here, a desire for forward momentum), before gradually laying down to a bed of cello and harp. And So It Is retains an inward focus throughout, and there are moments of transcendence, when the individual concerns plaguing Shaw seem to give way to pure delight in the discovery and expression of musical forms.
Shaw carefully selected his collaborators for this project, numerous and talented, including Lawrence Shaw and elder statesman Dwight Trible, among others. That track three, “Windows to the Soul,” is an interpretation of a Chick Corea composition, and that track eight, “Never Catch Me Out Of Alignment,” is sort of a cover of a Kendrick and Flylo collab, will intrigue and entertain old and new heads alike. And So It Is is a lovingly produced collaborative document of an artist at a crossroads who has chosen to proceed. Was it ever really a choice, even? While the future remains forever uncertain, for all of us, there is an infinite well-spring of hope and freedom and joy in doing what we do, and doing it well.
- Emmet Shoemaker, Saturday Sept 20 2025
- additional notes provided by Carlos Niño, Friday Sept 26 2025
credits
released February 13, 2026
Aaron Shaw - Alto Flute and Tenor Saxophone
Alex Smith - Drums
Carlos Niño - Drums and Percussion
Dwight Trible - Voice
Kiernan Weggler Lomeli - Cello
Lawrence Shaw - Bass
Merci B - Harp
Sam Reid - Piano
Ghalani - Vocoder
Produced by Aaron Shaw with Carlos Niño
Mixed by Nate Mercereau
Mastered by Matthewdavid McQueen
Cover Photo by Sam Lee
From Living Earth / TreePeople, Los Angeles,
on Wednesday, December 18, 2024
I got this a few weeks ago and hadn’t had a chance to listen until today. This is fabulously funky and bass-forward. Really loving it… on the third listen today. Christina
Oh! My! God(dess)! What an absolutely magnificent work of art! On first listen I select ‘Fish Without a Bicycle’ because (a) I know the slogan (but didn’t know the story, and its Australian background, so this Greek Aussie is grateful for the opportunity to learn something) and it made me smile, and (b) I loved how the melody and harmony created this bittersweet, contemplating undertones. Very well done! Nikos Fotakis
