Ben LaMar Gay
downtown castles can never block the sun
Now Available
Ben LaMar Gay - downtown castles can never block the sun
What people Are Saying
“…An Album That Is Less About Fusing Jazz, Funk, And Other Genres Than It Is About Elevating The Diverse Sounds Of Earth To The Heavens.”
“There’s a palpable sense that Downtown Castles is true Americana, encompassing South and Central America as much as the US. In Gay’s music, the fluidity between the esoteric and catchy, the exotic and the familiar, is paramount.”
“Ben LaMar Gay’s music is full of wonder. It takes in the endearing glow of the natural world, plus the endless variety of man-made refractions, and then processes those beams and flickers into something strikingly original.”
“In Essence, This Jam-Packed Album Stirs Up The Vibrancy Of Life Itself. Downtown Castles Is A Bright Parade Of Humanity, Led By Gay As Its Dazzling Grand Marshal.”
“…A Compelling Series Of Vignettes, A Survey Of The Depth And Vitality Of Chicago’s Jazz And Improvisational Music Scenes…”
– Marty Garner, Aquarium Drunkard
“It Moves From Fuzz-Caked Weirdo-Psych To Mutant Synth-Funk To Giddy Electronics To Progressive Jazz At A Seamless, Whiplash-Free Warp Speed.”
Announcing IARC0017: Ben LaMar Gay - Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun
Released May 4, 2018
Available digitally via our Bandcamp page
Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun is as much a ‘greatest hits’ as it is a ‘debut album’ for Ben LaMar Gay. It’s a collection of music composed, performed & produced by the anomalous Southside Chicago-born, sometimes Brazil-residing artist, compiled from 7 albums he made over the last 7 years but never made the effort to actually release.
If you’re a follower of Chicago brand avant-garde, Downtown Castles is likely not the first you’ve heard from Ben. One of the most prolific collaborators in our city’s creative music community, he makes active contributions to Theaster Gates’s Black Monks of Mississippi, Nicole Mitchell’s EarthSeed, Mike Reed’s Flesh & Bone, Matthew Lux’s Communication Arts Quartet, Joshua Abrams’s Natural Information Society, Bitchin Bajas & many more. He’s a default descendent and a long-time participant in the AACM (i.e. the legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). And he’s well represented in the International Anthem catalogue as well. Beyond being the brains behind Bottle Tree – the future funk suite we released in April of 2017 that was named “#1 Best Album of the Year” by London’s EZH Magazine (c/o founder Tina Edwards) and on NPR’s Sound Opinions (c/o producer Ayana Contreras) – he was a core component of Makaya McCraven’s Highly Rare and a cornet cameo on Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (both of which were included in the New York Times’s “Best Albums of 2017”). Suffices to say, Ben LaMar Gay is nearly omnipresent in the current zeitgeist of progressive jazz sounds sprouting from Chicago.
Knowing how tirelessly Ben works and how, perhaps more than anybody we’ve encountered, he embraces music-making purely for the joy of the process, it was not surprising to learn he had been low-key self-producing recordings between his residences in Chicago & Brazil for the last 7 years, and had amassed 7 albums that were sitting totally finished, never released, on hard drives at his house. And knowing how dynamic his tastes and talents are, it was not surprising, but nonetheless astonishing, to find that each of those 7 albums have drastically different sounds from one to the next, each a totally unique concept with a totally unique, colorful story.
Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (a title taken from the mantra he repeats across several tracks on Grapes, 1 of the 7 albums) is our effort to channel the rainbow of sonic expressions, art & poetry beaming from the ark of his unreleased catalogue into a cohesive & communicable compilation. It’s as good of an introduction to Ben LaMar Gay as we could fit onto a single LP. To call it “eclectic” would only scratch the surface. This music is everything.
Notes
Compiled & Sequenced by Scott McNiece & Ben LaMar Gay.
Mastered by David Allen
Cover Art & Photos by Maren Celest.
All rights reserved
About Ben LaMar Gay
Chicago cornetist Ben Lamar Gay is one of the city's most adventurous and boundary-pushing performers with sound that touches upon avant-garde jazz, hip-hop, indie rock, Brazilian traditions, and experimental electronic composition. A member of the AACM, Gay (who also spent time traveling and living in Brazil) emerged in the 2000s singing and playing a variety of instruments. Most often, he works in the studio, layering his songs with overdubbed parts, as he did on his own Juba Dance album Orange. Over the years, he has proven himself to be an unpredictable artist with a wide-ranging stylistic ear.
Raised on Chicago's South Side, Gay developed his cornet skills as a member of the respected AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). As a solo artist, he released the album Orange under the Juba Dance moniker. From there, he appeared on albums by a diverse range of artists from hip-hop performer Polyphonic the Verbose and jazz drummer Makaya McCraven to alternative R&B artist Coultrain. He has also collaborated with Jaimie Branch, Theo Parrish, Celso Fonseca, and others. In 2018, Gay collected a handful of his own unreleased tracks for his debut album, Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, on International Anthem. ~ Matt Collar