In late November of 2018, long-time collaborators (& life-long Los Angelenos) Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood Ferguson flew to Chicago to participate in the album release performance of Makaya McCraven's Universal Beings. Just 11 months prior, Carlos & Miguel were part of recording the 'Los Angeles Side' of Universal Beings at Jeff Parker's house in Altadena, California, and this performance in Chicago would be the first time that all of the musicians reunited to re-learn and perform the music they'd collectively composed during those sessions. The Universal Beings performance and preceding days of rehearsal took place at the iconic South Shore Cultural Center - a historic gilded-era urban club-turned-public facility deep on Chicago's Southside and right along the reedy shore of Lake Michigan, giving the building's backdrop an infinitely blue Northern expanse.