Looking back to keep moving forward. Where Future Unfolds the new album from Chicago-base improvisational artist Damon Locks and his ensemble of musicians is immediately evocative and stamped with a remarkably vivid consciousness and stark if mystical clarity. It made me think of so many of the great Black American musics and musicians of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies; of Nina Simone, John and Alice Coltrane, Aretha Franlin, Charles Mingus, Mahalia Jackson, Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets Sun Ra, Curtis Mayfield. And so on. add your own names, I'm sure you get the idea.
It may not always sound like these artists but the record carries the unmistakable stamp of their work and takes forward the torch they first lit. It stirs together Gospel, Soul and Cosmic Jazz remarkably, (plenty of Hip Hop sensibility too), and then makes its own statement fully fluently It's as good a record to summon forth the turbulent spirit of the age we're living through as you'll hear this year. Soothing and empowering music for deeply troubled times. A strange brew but on first hearing I'd imagine one that promises to be a heady and highly addictive.
The album casts a spell of spoken word, chanted vocals and thick hypnotic musical rhythms. It's perfectly clear that this is a call to political engagement and activism. It's wonderful to see the response of these musicians, among a growing sea of voices to the reactionary wave of politics we're currently experiencing. Fight the power indeed.
This is a defiant and declamatory album. It doesn't offer easy answers but does make a stirring, celebratory and remarkable stand. I can only advise you to get with its programme.
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