Last month, we shared the exciting announcement of Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople, the first full-length collaboration between poet, musician, and visionary Saul Williams and master percussionist and producer Carlos Niño. Recorded live in December 2024 beneath the black oak and walnut trees of Coldwater Canyon Park in Los Angeles, the album is a powerful gathering of kindred spirits in a setting shaped by ecology, memory, resistance, and release. Alongside Niño’s close collaborators, including Kamasi Washington, Nate Mercereau, Maia, Aaron Shaw, Francesca Heart, Andres Renteria, and a special appearance by aja monet, the album bridges disciplines and generations with spiritual depth and daring imagination.

Following the affective, immersive and meditative lead single, ‘Sound then Words’, they are sharing today the second single from the album, ‘The Water Is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad . . .’, featuring poet aja monet, who delivers a soft yet searing reading of her poem The Water Is Rising, a quiet reckoning with climate, collapse, and care. Williams follows with a hopeful parable about a firing squad, where one member hesitates, caught between duty and belief. It becomes a meditation on the possibility of humanity within the machinery of violence. Haunting, stirring, and laden with quiet urgency, ‘The Water Is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad . . .’ is streaming below.

Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople is out on August 28th through International Anthem