As a New Yorker for over a decade, my first go to to Chicago in 2024 prompted me to reassess what I thought-about the perfect American metropolis. Town is wealthy in quirky, underground artwork and boasts a vibrant historical past of Black music that spans varied genres and locales, which I sensed inside days of my arrival. One distinguished determine on this cultural panorama is Damon Locks, a multifaceted visible artist, educator, vocalist, and digital musician actively contributing to Chicago’s inventive scene.

Locks’ music is a singular mix of experimental sound collage, poetry, and text-based compositions. His inventive methods echo influences from Madlib, Bomb Squad, and Combine Mastermind. Presently, he teaches improvisation at The Faculty of the Artwork Institute of Chicago (SAIC), leads a neighborhood artist collective, and collaborates within the pirate radio duo New Future Metropolis Radio. His dedication to liberatory types of artwork and social engagement is clear all through his physique of labor.

Rising up in Silver Spring, MD, simply exterior of Washington, D.C., through the Nineteen Eighties, Locks was immersed within the influential harDCore music scene. His superior visible artwork lessons launched him to “the older children,” together with future Fugazi bassist Joe Lally. Inspired by the openness of punk tradition, he began varied bands, ultimately forming Trenchmouth with guitarist Chris DeZutter, bassist Wayne Montana, and drummer (now comic and actor) Fred Armisen. Throughout our current Zoom dialog, Locks recalled, “My first present was a Minor Menace present once I was 13 or 14. The punk scene was exhilarating. You didn’t must know methods to play an instrument – you possibly can simply dive in.”

Constructing on the spirit of collaborative expression inside a DIY underground group, Locks later initiated his mission Black Monument Ensemble (BME). What started as a solo digital endeavor has developed right into a dynamic collective of numerous, intentional, and multi-generational Black Chicagoans. “I deliberately create frameworks, lyrics, and melodies, however there’s ample house for artists to infuse their very own model,” he defined. Collaborating with musicians, motion artists, and poets, Locks leads these compositions by means of voice, recordings, and a powerful conceptual imaginative and prescient.

Locks has a selected affinity for text-based recitation, honed throughout his decade-long collaboration with Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra. “With BME,” he famous, “I might often write items of textual content tailor-made to the house we have been in and ship them.” When commissioned by Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio, Locks felt an urge to create a constant text-based efficiency. He was impressed by dub poetry, an artwork kind originating from Jamaica that mixes spoken textual content with stay music. This course of culminated in his solo debut album Listing of Calls for, launched on January 31 by means of Worldwide Anthem.

Damon Locks -- Photo by Jamie Kelter Davis

Damon Locks — Photograph by Jamie Kelter Davis

Locks introduced collectively cornetist Ben LaMar Homosexual, violinist Macie Stewart, and turntablist-drummer DJ Main Taylor (Ralph Darden) so as to add vibrancy to the album. Locks initially recorded his personal sound and vocal tracks earlier than inviting these musicians to boost them. “I gave Ralph my vocals with none instrumental backdrop, and he scratched them along with his turntable. I used to be not sure of what the ultimate product would sound like. At instances, I inspired Ben and Macie to ‘go loopy’ or ‘let free,’” he shared.

On the observe “Meteors of Concern,” Darden creatively expands on Locks’ fragmented sampling method with analog turntablism. In “Distance,” Stewart’s violin thrives infuse a way of urgency into Locks’ recitation. Poet and visible artist Krista Franklin additionally options on the album, with the enchanting piece “Excessive Priestess” constructed across the soothing presence of Franklin’s poetry.

Archival recordings kind a vital side of Locks’ album. All through the inventive course of, he drew from a wide range of historic sources, together with the Civil Rights motion of the Nineteen Sixties and the voices of figures just like the late Nikki Giovanni. Regardless of the album’s in depth use of samples, Locks’ voice effortlessly navigates the grooves, leading to a sound that arguably transcends conventional classifications – it could actually finest be described as “poetry.”

Damon Locks -- Photo by Jamie Kelter Davis

Damon Locks — Photograph by Jamie Kelter Davis

The compositions put forth by Locks construct on a historic dialogue established by Black artists and thinkers. “After I think about their work as a ‘listing of calls for,’ I’m merely including yet another merchandise to that listing. The archival texts and samples are integral to the music, which permits me to weave my very own textual content round them. This juxtaposition strengthens the dialog; it is about exploring and creating new areas,” Locks articulated. In that sense, Listing of Calls for is nothing wanting timeless.

The archival side additionally influenced how Locks created accompanying movies and bodily media for the album. As a visible artist, he typically opts for conventional methods, resembling paper, ink, risograph prints, and collages, over digital perfection. For Listing of Calls for, he drew inspiration from materials utilized by British Black Panthers within the Nineteen Sixties and 70s, which utilized single-color printing to maintain manufacturing prices down.

“The video for ‘Holding the Daybreak in Place (Past Half.2)’ takes benefit of that single-color journal aesthetic. It served as a wonderful framework for contemplating methods to current textual content in a tactile and tangible method. You encounter the sound of the textual content, after which should you’re going to have one thing holding it, it wants texture,” he noticed. The album’s placing packaging options pictures and typewriter-like fonts that resemble letters; Locks even handwrites over typed textual content within the zine-style liner notes, akin to a “blast-over” tattoo.

Inside the vinyl launch, listeners can uncover the inspiration behind the album’s title. Earlier than its closure in September 2024, Locks engaged with inmates at Stateville Correctional Heart by means of a program supplied by the Jail and Neighborhood Arts and Training Challenge. This initiative allowed him to collaborate with males in a maximum-security facility for a decade.

“We created a doc I named the Artist Structure, the place they outlined their aspirations, rules, and calls for. One of the vital important challenges in creating [the album] was organizing these concepts right into a cohesive idea. By together with that doc within the file, I basically preface the album with a transparent indication of its textual nature. It started to really feel interconnected; that’s the album,” he defined.

By working with the incarcerated, one among society’s most marginalized teams, Locks empowers these people to regain their voice, reshape their narratives, and discover pleasure. “Artwork is throughout us; it’s essential and impactful… it serves as our advocate for liberation,” he mirrored. In each aspect of Damon Locks’ artistry immediately, the spirit of that 13-year-old hardcore child stays—searching for group each within the current and throughout historical past whereas embracing the DIY ethos needed for creating the areas and futures which have but to emerge.

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