Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek – New Future City Radio (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

New Future City Radio is the first duo collaboration of longtime creative partners Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek. In a hyperactive 40-minute, 18-track suite that runs like a boombox mixtape, the two prolific multi-media artists contemplate community, transformation, and the future through the programmatic format of a pirate radio station for the people.

These two artists have worked together from the peak days of the late 90s / early 00s Chicago music scene up through the present day, which has seen Locks featured as lead vocalist of multiple critically-acclaimed Exploding Star Orchestra (ESO) albums composed/produced by Mazurek and released by International Anthem (IARC) in 2020 (Dimensional Stardust) and 2023 (Lightning Dreamers). In recent years, Locks has also earned great renown from his revolutionary, expansive latter-day gospel/jazz project Black Monument Ensemble (BME), with which he’s released two albums on IARC (2019’s Where Future Unfolds and 2021’s NOW). New Future City Radio finds the artists creating a natural but innovatively-assembled blend of the sounds of those two projects, with Locks’s BME-style sample-based sound collage creating compositional beds underneath the signature Orson Welles-like vocal delivery he’s developed through his work with ESO, alongside Roland SP flourishes and arresting brass improvisations by Mazurek.

Themes both sonic and text based were predetermined but improvisation leads the journey. The music these two have devised may sound overtly bombastic one moment and gently transportive the next, and often somewhere in between. When asked about New Future City Radio the duo exclaim in one voice: “I’m talking post, post, post, future. I’m talking resilience and levitation. I’m talking beauty and structural integrity for my people. I’m talking light beams that tell stories and educate. Let’s talk about that if you wanna talk new future!”

Tracklist:
1-01. Damon Locks – 5-4-3-2-1 (00:22)
1-02. Damon Locks – Yes! (02:15)
1-03. Damon Locks – The Sun Returns (02:27)
1-04. Damon Locks – Breeze Of Time (02:39)
1-05. Damon Locks – Your Name Gonna Ring The Bell (01:07)
1-06. Damon Locks – New Future (01:07)
1-07. Damon Locks – Droids! (02:18)
1-08. Damon Locks – The Concord Hour (05:08)
1-09. Damon Locks – Future City (00:23)
1-10. Damon Locks – 10mins Past The Hour (00:17)
1-11. Damon Locks – Support The Youth (With Sound) (01:19)
1-12. Damon Locks – The Beat (00:55)
1-13. Damon Locks – Las Niñas Estan Escuchando (The Children Are Listening) (00:19)
1-14. Damon Locks – Flitting Splits Reverb Adage (03:56)
1-15. Damon Locks – Twilight Shimmer (09:53)
1-16. Damon Locks – Suspense In The Grip Of Suspense (03:58)
1-17. Damon Locks – Polaris Radio (01:10)
1-18. Damon Locks – Drop (00:09)