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"NOW" is a truly stunning release that fully captures a wide range of emotions and moods. Driven by strong percussion, brass, and woodwinds, Damon Locks and The Black Monument Ensemble paint a vivid and evocative aural space by turns dream-like and resonant. Excellent work that encourages repeat listening...
***Ships only from US and UK. Attn: EU customers, if you include this item in your multiple item purchase it will trigger the shipment from the UK
Includes unlimited streaming of NOW
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 7 days
Purchasable with gift card
$13USDor more
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
$9USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
140-gram Classic Black vinyl LP vinyl LP inside a reverse-board jacket (artwork by Damon Locks), with Eastside IARC obi strip, 17"x22" folded broadsheet insert (with liner notes, photos, and illustrations), and dome patterned inner-sleeve.
***Sold out in the UK. Ships from US & EU only.
Includes unlimited streaming of NOW
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 7 days
Purchasable with gift card
$24USDor more
IARC0039 - Shades of Night in Gold color vinyl LP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
*Limited Edition* 140-gram "Shades of Night in Gold" color vinyl LP inside a reverse-board jacket (artwork by Damon Locks), with Eastside IARC obi strip, 17"x22" folded broadsheet insert (with liner notes, photos, and illustrations), and dome patterned inner-sleeve.
***PLEASE NOTE*** Multiple item orders that contain this pre-order won't ship until this title is in stock. If you would like to receive in-stock titles sooner please place a separate order for those items.
Includes unlimited streaming of NOW
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Melodies in gold, dipped in sunlight
Levitating song, laughter, delight
You can see it all, universal insight
You can see it now, spectrum brilliant and bright
The instant people take flight
Come to speak your peace, mother of time
Rotation of the dial, revive the life
You can free it all, light in their eyes
You can free it now, see nobody dies
Beyond the timeline
Shades of night in gold, green, crimson and black
Call into the twilight, the curtain pulls back
You can know it all, with language in place
You can know it now, with rhythm and grace
Forever momentary space
Keep a space for the colors to process
Your body aches under the weight of the metropolis
Mind creates and dreams of ways to get on top of this
Free defeats the deadly vampires that flock to it
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
Keep projecting through the air and beyond the wall
Your heart is breaking to maintain and contain it all
Mind eclipse, they cut the lights, and hung up on the call
Free to float, no gravity, a way to never fall
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
Keep your mind free
A language that is new
And new equations
Self portrait done today
Turns out a different way
A language that is new
And new equations
A change in what we say
A voice to pave the way
Picture all we know
Shift the land and the river’s flow
From grey to bold
Listen close to the stories told
And we know what is in our reach
And behind us is a crowded street It’s a movement thing
The brass is stuttering
The body is electric, alive with life
Picture all we know
People moving in slow motion though
Tension hums below
Nothing like all the stories told
And we know what is in our reach
And behind us is a crowded street
It’s a movement thing
The brass is stuttering
The body is electric, alive with life
about
“Time is just the difference between knowing now and knowing nothing. Because if you know now fully, it’s past, present, and future.”
— Mattie Humphries, 1968
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?’”
...about Black Monument Ensemble...
Originally conceived as a medium for Chicago-based multi-media artist/activist Damon Locks’s sample-based sound collage work, Black Monument Ensemble (BME) has evolved from a solo mission into a vibrant collective of artists, musicians, singers, and dancers making work with common goals of joy, compassion, and intention. Galvanized by Locks’s conceptualizing, poeticizing, and guiding vision, the contributors come from all facets of the diverse wellspring of Black artistic excellence in Chicago, bringing their unique perspectives and experiences to uplifting, anthemic, and highly animated musical performance.
BME is a genuinely multi-generational collective; ages of the members range from 9 to 52 years old. In addition to Locks, current and consistent BME members include: instrumentalists Angel Bat Dawid, Ben LaMar Gay, Dana Hall, and Arif Smith; singers Phillip Armstrong, Monique Golding, Rayna Golding, Tramaine Parker, Richie Parks, Erica Rene, and Eric Tre’von; and dancers Raven Lewis, Cheyenne Spencer, Mary Thomas, Bryonna Young, Tiarra Young, and Keisha Janae.
Locks has a stated interest in work that explores “The Black Nod” which, as he explains, is “an unspoken acknowledgment that happens often out in the world – a sort of ‘I see you’ moment exchanged between Black people.” His work with BME attempts to do the same. Fronted by a jubilant choir, the ensemble embraces a kind of civically engaged, artistic approach to activism originally heard in the 1960s from bands like the Voices of East Harlem and on albums like Max Roach’s We Insist; or originally seen in the photography of Kwame Brathwaite and the art of Emory Douglas. Merging influence from the subsequent half-century of artistic & technological evolution, Locks employs a cyber-punk palette of disparate implements (including beatbox, boombox, telephone, and megaphone) to make narrative compositions of mined sound, beats & archival speech (a la Madlib or Supa K) which are brought to life by the ensemble in electric, improvisational performance. It’s a truly multi-dimensional sound that spans mediums, genres, and generations; past, present, & future.
...about Damon Locks...
Damon Locks is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist, musician, and deejay. Known for decades of varied projects in Chicago’s underground music & art scenes, Locks’ CV starts in the late 1980s with the band Trenchmouth, and is highlighted by work with The Eternals (co-led by Trenchmouth bandmate Wayne Montana), Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, collaborations with Nicole Mitchell, Ben LaMar Gay, and many others. In recent years Locks has traversed almost every media discipline… including sound/animation work using unheard Sun Ra recordings from Experimental Sound Studio’s archive (with Terri Kapsalis, Wayne Montana, and Rob Shaw); various collaborations with contemporary dancers & choreographers including Onye Ozuzu, Ayesha Jaco (of Move Me Soul), and Anna Martine Whitehead (on presentations & workshops with the Detroit Justice Center); participating in artist residencies at The New Quorum in New Orleans (alongside Nicole Mitchell, Lisa E Harris, Wadada Leo Smith, and others); teaching work with incarcerated artists for the Prison and Neighborhood Arts/Education Project at Stateville maximum security prison; and producing cover art for dozens of albums, including several International Anthem releases by Makaya McCraven, Hear In Now, Irreversible Entanglements, and more.
credits
released April 9, 2021
Players:
Angel Bat Dawid – clarinet
Ben LaMar Gay – cornet & melodica
Dana Hall – drums
Damon Locks – samples & electronics
Arif Smith – percussion
Singers:
Phillip Armstrong
Monique Golding
Tramaine Parker
Richie Parks
Erica Rene
Eric Tre’von
Lyrics & Compositions by: Damon Locks
Recorded August 27th-28th and September 29th, 2020, at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago.
Engineered & Mixed by: Alex Inglizian
Mastered by: David Allen
Album & Insert Art by: Damon Locks
Insert Photos by: Brian Ashby
Layout & Insert Design by: Craig Hansen
Album art features photos of Raven Lewis and Tiarra Young taken by Kristie Kahns.
International Anthem is a Chicago-born recording company that produces and promotes progressive
media.
The IARC mission is to make positive contributions to the changing state of the music industry, and to vitalize the demand for boundary-defying music by presenting unique sounds in appealing packages to untapped audiences....more
I always tell people that recommend me jazz that I don't like jazz, but this album showed me that that is an utter lie. Apparently I love jazz, and this album made me realise it. Evert
The London jazz-fusion ensemble navigate themes of faith and struggle on their latest LP, toying with dub, hip-hop and soul as they go. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 1, 2020
Stunning album. A bit soul, a bit of Bill Conti, a bit of Steve Reich & Philip Glass, the album takes you on a real journey. Really really good. Gareth
