Essential New Music: Damon Locks’ “List Of Demands”

Some might say that List Of Demands sounds like it was ripped from today’s headlines, but given the way things are going, Damon Locks’ pithy blasts of verbiage are the headlines. There are lyrics that sound like unembellished reports of the week’s calamities, complete with the listener’s reaction shots. Consider these, lifted from “Meteors Of Fear”:

“Always on the attack/Craters of doubt and stress/Torrents of abuse like shards of flying glass/Believe what you will/No one knows you now/And no one will be here to say it wasn’t you who did this.”

But Locks isn’t just broadcasting from the current dystopia. People around the world have been facing oppression, disenfranchisement and environmental disaster for a while, and Locks is a scholar of the sonic literature that documents not only its occurrence, but solutions for living through it. The samples of vintage soul, reggae and movie dialogue surround Locks with desperate, defiant, erudite and joyous black voices. His own voice cuts through like a radio announcer’s, beaming commentary out of the chaos. On occasion Ben Lamar Gay’s cornet, Macie Stewart’s violin and Ralph Darden’s drums pipe up like another voice, spelling Locks as he readies his next salvo of words and sounds.

While you’re tracking down List Of Demands, keep an eye peeled for its immediate predecessor and sonic companion, 3D Sonic Adventure. Locks released it in the autumn of last year on his own Recording Device label, but he has intentionally kept it off the internet. You can only find it at his gigs or record stores that staff buyers who have their ears to the ground. [International Anthem]

—Bill Meyer