Chicago-based artist, musician, educator, and activist Damon Locks introduced his Black Monument Ensemble with 2019's Where Future Unfolds, a complex, sprawling work splayed across vanguard jazz, gritty soul, funk, and poetry. Now, its follow-up, was recorded during the global COVID-19 pandemic as the killings of unarmed Black citizens George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and a consequential presidential campaign captured the global imagination. Locks and his collaborators responded to these societal and cultural tensions with jarring sounds and fully coherent narrative expressions of emotion ranging from anger and grief to relentless hope. Through the spring and summer of 2020, Locks composed music and created samples as protests roiled on the streets. In August, he assembled clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid, cornetist Ben LaMar Gay, and a chorale of vocalists -- Phillip Armstrong, Monique Golding, Tramaine Parker, Richie Parks, Erica Rene, and Eric Tre’von -- behind Chicago's Experimental Sound Studios and cut the new material in single takes, accompanied by cicadas in the surrounding trees. A month later, Locks, drummer Dana Hall, and percussionist Arif Smith added beats, samples, and loops.

1		Now (Forever Momentary Space)
2		The People Vs the Rest of Us
3		Keep Your Mind Free
4		Barbara Jones-Hogu and Elizabeth Catlett Discuss Liberation
5		Movement and You
6		The Body Is Electric

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