BEN LAMAR GAY new single/video out today // NYC release show January 18th @ Public Records for Winter Jazz Fest
BEN LAMAR GAY SHARES NEW SINGLE/VIDEO FOR
“AUNT LOLA AND THE QUAIL”
NEW ALBUM OPEN ARMS TO OPEN US
OUT NOVEMBER 19 VIA INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM
...and...
Album Release Show Confirmed for January 18 at Public Records in Brooklyn, as part of NYC Winter Jazzfest
Today Chicago-based composer, singer and improviser Ben LaMar Gay shares a new single and music video for “Aunt Lola and the Quail,” a song off his upcoming album Open Arms to Open Us, out November 19, 2021 on International Anthem & Nonesuch Records. It’s also been announced that on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 Ben LaMar Gay will perform a special album release performance, presented by International Anthem at Public Records in Brooklyn as part of NYC Winter Jazzfest, with an opening set by his International Anthem label-mate jaimie branch.
Tickets for the Brooklyn LP release show are here, and go on sale this Friday November 12th.
A new video for “Aunt Lola and the Quail,” directed by Chris Strong, also is out today. The song, written and composed by Gay, retraces his childhood summers spent on his Great Aunt Lola’s land in Alabama. In his prologue for the album, Gay recalls: “Aunt Lola and I would stand still and listen together. We would immediately become aware of the winds approaching through the wavering pines, quail sounds and the chatter of distant cousins just up the road.”
Previously released tracks from Open Arms to Open Us are “Mestre Candeia’s Denim Hat,” “Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks On You,” and “Oh Great Be the Lake;” the new album explores Gay’s interests in thermodynamics, rhythm as an inheritance of information, and improvisation as “the one freedom that we all have access to.” For more information, read Gay’s prologue for Open Arms to Open Us here.
Watch the video for "Aunt Lola and the Quail" here
NYC Winter Jazzfest & International Anthem present
BEN LAMAR GAY
Open Arms to Open Us Album Release Performance
with opening set by JAIMIE BRANCH (solo)
Tuesday January 18, 2022
at PUBLIC RECORDS
233 Butler St, Brooklyn NY
Tickets HERE
(on sale Friday November 12th)
IARC0051
Ben LaMar Gay
Open Arms to Open Us
co-release with Nonesuch Records
LP/CD/Digital out November 19th 2021
preview & pre-order TODAY
Produced and recorded at International Anthem Studios in Chicago between March and June of 2021, across sixteen tracks Gay fluently interweaves jazz, blues, ballads, R&B, raga, new music, nursery rhyme, tropicalia, two-step, hip-hop and beyond in a beaming expression of his signature omni-genre “Pan-Americana” brew.
Alongside his own sizable toolkit of instruments (cornet, keyboards, synthesizers, flutes, percussions), Gay surrounds himself with steady bandmates (including Tommaso Moretti on drums, Matthew Davis on tuba, and Rob Frye on woodwinds), while also shining the spotlight on female artists from his cast of regular collaborators (including OHMME singers Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, bassist/vocalist/arranger Ayanna Woods, multi-disciplinary Rwandan artist Dorothée Munyaneza, poet A.Martinez, cellist Tomeka Reid, and vocalists Onye Ozuzu, Gira Dahnee, and Angel Bat Dawid).
This latest project is the follow up to Gay’s 2018 critically-acclaimed debut album Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, which was a compilation of previously-unreleased material composed and produced by Gay over seven years. It was heralded by Pitchfork, NPR and The Guardian, the last of which called it, “a record of endless depth and unpredictability.”
But Gay’s work is not limited to album releases. He has composed for dance troupes (including the Ruth Page Civic Ballet) and architectural features (including a duet with the DuSable Bridge in downtown Chicago), and also has done extensive film score work (including Beija Films' Tribeca Film Festival award-winning documentary, The Good Fight). In 2019 he debuted ‘Hecky Naw! Angels!’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, using video art and choreography to explore the shapes and sounds of Chicago’s Black social dances.
Preview & Pre-Order
Open Arms to Open Us
!!! today !!!
*Deluxe Vinyl Package*
CHICAGO SUNSET COLOR VINYL
Open Arms to Open Us in vinyl form is a 33rpm 160 gram LP (pressed by Smashed Plastic in Chicago) in a heavyweight matte jacket, with insert sheet, IARC obi strip and dome patterned inner sleeve.
And, as always, we have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only, available via our Bandcamp page only, which is 777 copies of Chicago Sunset color vinyl.
Order a copy via our Bandcamp page today!
Open Arms to Open Us
album artwork
by Ayanah Moor
International Anthem x Nonesuch Records
North & South American distribution
Open Arms to Open Us is marketed & distributed in North & South America via our partnership with Nonesuch Records.
Following Jeff Parker's Suite For Max Brown (released in January of 2020) and Rob Mazurek / Exploding Star Orchestra's Dimensional Stardust (released in November of 2020), Open Arms is the third of at least six albums we'll be co-releasing alongside Nonesuch (i.e. the half-century-old label that's housed the likes of Steve Reich, Caetano Veloso, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Ry Cooder, the whole classic suite of Buena Vista Social Club artists/albums, and many more).
As Nonesuch is part of the Warner Music Group, Open Arms to Open Us will be distributed in North & South America by WEA. Stores, retailers, folks interested in wholesale purchases: please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about where/how to stock these releases.
Distribution via K7 for
Europe, UK, Japan, Australia, and ROW
This album - and all of our albums - are distributed by our friends at K7 Records and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Japan, Australia, Asia, and everywhere else in the world outside of North & South America.
If you are a retailer or store with questions about wholesale or are just looking to get some of our records... we'd like to make things as easy for you as possible, please do not hesitate to reach out!!!
All photos of Ben LaMar Gay
at the 35th St Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, Chicago,
shot by Alejandro Ayala
