{"id":22188,"date":"2024-12-11T16:55:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T16:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/castthedice.org\/?p=22188"},"modified":"2024-12-11T16:58:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T16:58:52","slug":"damon-locks-announces-new-solo-album-list-of-demands-shares-lead-single-click","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/castthedice.org\/?p=22188","title":{"rendered":"Damon Locks announces new solo album, List of Demands<\/em>; shares lead single ‘Click’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Jamie Kelter Davis<\/p><\/div>\n

A seminal figure in Chicago\u2019s underground music scenes, artist, educator, musician, deejay, and vocalist Damon Locks<\/a> has been leading and involved in various projects since the late 1980s, including Trenchmouth, The Eternals, Rob Mazurek\u2019s Exploding Star Orchestra, Black Monument Ensemble and collaborated with artists such as Nicole Mitchell and Ben LaMar Gay, amongst many more. A man of many talents and disciplines, Locks has in recent years expanded his creative work across different media, including sound\/animation projects with unreleased Sun Ra recordings, collaborations with dancers and choreographers, and residencies at The New Quorum in New Orleans. He has also worked with incarcerated artists for the Prison and Neighborhood Arts Project, produced album artwork for International Anthem label mates like Makaya McCraven or Irreversible Entanglements, and worked on numerous interdisciplinary projects.<\/p>\n

List of Demands<\/em> is his latest work, a longplayer which for the first time is completely based off his poetry and texts, whilst still retaining his signature collage style. As is so often the case for Locks’ work, on List of Demands<\/em> we find him “projecting an ecstatic positivity via his nuanced grasp of reality, and lucidly articulating the ever-evasive concept of what could be”, as the press release describes.<\/p>\n

The album sprouted from an invitation by Experimental Sound Studio to create a piece for an exhibition. Later Locks was encouraged by ESS\u2019s Alex Inglizian to expand it into a full recording, and he enlisted regular collaborators including cornetist Ben LaMar Gay, violinist Macie Stewart, poet Krista Franklin, and turntablist \/ drummer Ralph Darden (aka DJ Major Taylor) to help bring the album to life. Despite their contributions, List of Demands<\/em> remains a deeply personal work, described as “arguably the most Damon Locks Damon Locks record to date, with his depth of experience as a mic controller on full display, as his voice soars above a strikingly melodic cadence of carefully chosen archival samples.”<\/p>\n

The album’s title stems from Locks\u2019 work in Stateville Correctional Center with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts\/Education Project. \u201cIn the summer of 2023 I taught a class where we developed a document that stated the desires of the incarcerated artists in the group,\u201d he explains. The group then spent a summer creating the Artist Constitution, a document outlining their beliefs, aspirations, and demands, which was later distributed outside the prison. \u201cList of Demands is not just my list,\u201d said Locks. \u201cThe list is in conveyance, in response, and in honour of all of those great Black speakers that turned a phrase to generate movement and change. It owes as much to Rammellzee, Fred Moten and Sun Ra\u2019s oratory excellence as it does to Kwame Ture\/Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis, to Michael Smith and Linton Kwesi Johnson (across the pond), to Ruby Dee\u2019s spoken recordings, and to others too numerous to mention.\u201d<\/p>\n

We’ll have to wait until January 31st for List of Demands<\/em> to be out through International Anthem<\/a> but can already get an exhilarating taste of what’s to come with the album\u2019s lead single ‘Click’. Here it is.<\/p>\n