Where Future Unfolds cover
Released

From former frontman of art-punk stalwarts Trenchmouth to polymath pillar of Chicago’s improv scene, Damon Locks’ career has led him to cross paths with so many different revolutionary musical thinkers and creators that his presence in International Anthem’s jazz-conversant community was practically a given. (In fact, his visual design sense and his artwork for releases like Nick Mazzarella Trio’s Ultraviolet and Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die were integral to the label’s identity years before he cut his first session for them.) Where Future Unfolds couldn’t help but find that similar communal connection, too. The album began as a one-man sound collage project based around speeches of the Civil Rights era, but took on the input of additional musicians over the span of four years until culminating as a live performance with a 15-member assemblage of musicians, singers, and dancers. What came out of it is a record that maintains the inspiration of past musical and cultural movements into an uncertain future where anger and optimism aren’t mutually exclusive — and neither are the past and the present, where echoes of Archie Shepp’s early ’70s funky avant-garde and Public Enemy’s freedom-or-death intensity fuel a necessarily inspirational anti-doomer Afrofutrism.

Nate Patrin

Suggestions
Live / Shapeshifter cover

Live / Shapeshifter

Hamid Drake, In Order to Survive, William Parker, Cooper-Moore, Rob Brown
Shawn-Neeq cover

Shawn-Neeq

Calvin Keys
Black Unity cover

Black Unity

Pharoah Sanders
Brainchild cover

Brainchild

Society of Soul
Orpheus the Lowdown cover

Orpheus the Lowdown

Andy Partridge, Peter Blegvad
Songs From the Bardo cover

Songs From the Bardo

Tenzin Choegyal, Laurie Anderson, Jesse Paris Smith
Dimensional Stardust cover

Dimensional Stardust

Exploding Star Orchestra, Rob Mazurek
Beautiful Scars cover

Beautiful Scars

Merry Clayton