»Support the youth who feel explosions! Support the youth with sound!« Quietly, a voice reaches our ear, distorted, like a radio-transmission from space. Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek have been out there for a while. As recently as March, the Jazz musicians embarked on a stellar space odyssey. Now, they have returned to Chicago. There, the duo captures a broadcasting station and translates their cosmic way of thinking into terrestrial tongues. »New Future City Radio« sketches a pirate radio, airing Free Jazz, Instrumental Hip-Hop and musique concrete. Time and again, announcements rustle through transitory soundscapes. They are charged with meaning, like the black panther on the cover. In their poetic prose, articulating democratic demands and reaching for the stars are indistinguishable. Locks & Mazurek address a disenfranchised youth. However, the musicians avoid the paternalistic gesture of imitating their »target audience’s« means of expression. Rather, their retro-futurism is an invitation to relate one’s own life to dreams past. The allies emphasize broadcasting’s ephemeral character. »New Future City Radio« is a collage of 16 fragments and two longer segments. Some of their vignettes are quite forgettable. Nevertheless, on an aesthetic-political level, the album is one the most exciting transmissions on air in 2023. For those that resonate with the desire for an egalitarian future, this program might strike a chord.
Melos Kalpa
Melos Kalpa
Hands In The Dark