Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble – Where Future Unfolds (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble – Where Future Unfolds (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:41 minutes | 499 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © International Anthem

Where Future Unfolds is a new work spirited by Chicago-based sound & visual artist Damon Locks. Starting as a solo sound collage piece (where Locks pulled samples from Civil Rights era speeches and recordings to create an improvisational pallet for performance on his drum machine), over 4 years the project has blossomed into his 15-piece Black Monument Ensemble – featuring musicians (including Angel Bat Dawid on clarinets and Dana Hall on drums), singers (alumni of the Chicago Children’s Choir), and dancers (members of Chicago youth dance company Move Me Soul). Where Future Unfolds is a live capture of the ensemble’s epic debut at the Garfield Park Botanical Conservatory on the West Side of Chicago. Recalling the spirits of Phil Cohran’s Artistic Heritage Ensemble, Eddie Gale’s Black Rhythm Happening, Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues, and Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, the album presents an inspired, innovative & immediate intersection of gospel, jazz, activism & 808 breaks.

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Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble – NOW (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble – NOW (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 30:33 minutes | 306 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © International Anthem

Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble’s new album “NOW” was created in the final throes of Summer 2020, following months of pandemic-induced fear & isolation, the explosion of social unrest, struggle & violence in the streets, and as the certain presence of a new reality had fully settled in. Set up safely in the garden behind Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio, the music was recorded in only a few takes, capturing the first times members of BME had ever played or sang the tunes. For Locks, the impetus was more about getting together to commune and make art than it was about producing an album. In his words: “It was about offering a new thought. It was about resisting the darkness. It was about expressing possibility. It was about asking the question, ‘Since the future has unfolded and taken a new and dangerous shape… what happens NOW?’”

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