Damon Locks -
Black Monument Esemble
Stay Beautiful
Now Available
Stay Beautiful
What people Are Saying
“This is a major work that should be encountered by anyone remotely interested in modern aural and performance art, improvisation and truth.”
“Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble’s Where Future Unfolds is the embodiment of genre-defying music. Looking to the past as well as the future, they encourage listeners towards engagement, empowerment, and participation.”
“It is the sound of the best kind of American spirituality and freedom, a product of heavens imagined by both the grounded traditionalists of the Black church and by the Afrofuturist likes of Sun Ra.”
“Embracing the street corner, the amen corner, the block party and the Black Panther party, Locks offers up an accessible avant garde that is fierce, funky, fresh and free as a motherfucker.”
“This is uplifting activist jazz for tumultuous times.”
“favourite album of 2019.”
IARCS025
Damon Locks - Black Monument Ensemble
Stay Beautiful
Released April 7, 2020
Available digitally via our Bandcamp page
A note about this song, from Damon Locks:
"An ode to Chicago: In a hospital room, doctors and nurses come in and out, evaluating, recommending, prepping, and testing. But once visiting hours are over the patient is left alone with their thoughts, ruminating on the intimidating lack of agency and loneliness of losing control of their own circumstances. Drifting towards despair, they discover flowers in the room. There is a note attached that expresses what I would say to Chicago in its most precarious condition.
“We see you. We love you. Stay beautiful.”
I am very happy to be able to share this song at this time. It is a fitting message for this moment we are living through. I hope you all stay safe.”
Notes
Musicians:
Angel Bat Dawid (clarinets), Dana Hall (drums, percussion), Damon Locks (electronics, bells, voice), Arif Smith (percussion).
Singers:
Phillip Armstrong, Monique Golding, Eric McCarter, Tramaine Parker, Lauren Robinson.
Dancers:
Anna Martine Whitehead, Raven Lewis (Move Me Soul), Cheyenne Spencer (Move Me Soul), Mary Thomas (Move Me Soul), Bryonna Young (Move Me Soul), Tiarra Young (Move Me Soul).
Outfits by: Jamie Hayes of Production Mode.
Additional Performers:
Rayna Golding, Keisha Janae, Anna Martine Whitehead, Erica Rene.
Lyrics & Music Composed by: Damon Locks.
Recorded & Mixed by: Charlie Mammoser.
Mastered by: Casey Rice & David Allen.
Cover Art by: Damon Locks
Recorded Live at Garfield Park Conservatory, as part of Red Bull Music Festival, Chicago, November 15th, 2018.
All rights reserved
About Black Monument Ensemble
Originally conceived as a medium for Chicago-based multi-media artist/activist Damon Locks’ 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.