Now

"Spirituel jazz, gospel, funk og borgerrettighedskamp forenes på et album, der manifesterer lyden af en postapokalyptisk coronaverden ... Damon Locks agerer både idémand, tekstforfatter, komponist og illustrator for ensemblet, mens han også står bag samplinger og de elektroniske manipulationer i musikken. Sidstnævnte kommer desværre til at fylde for meget på pladen og overskygger resten af ensemblets arbejde. På 'The People vs the Rest of Us' har Locks sammenklippet optagelser fra 1960'ernes borgerrettighedsbevægelse med nogle blæserlyde. Klippe-klistre-arbejdet består desværre primært af irriterende gentagelser, der lyder som en ridset cd, som er gået i hak ... Jeg sidder tilbage med oplevelsen af et lidt for flygtigt album, som virker mindre gennemarbejdet end forgængeren".

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"Recorded outside in a garden at the end of the last pandemic summer with the cicadas screeching into the mix, Now is an album of life and vitality, created from the need to commune without literal closeness. The session took two days, the same days the group learned the material. The songs pour out like an onslaught, and linger on the brain long after they've played".

"It's quite a record that can simultaneously conjure the spirits of both Duke Ellington and Public Enemy, but this second album by the Chicago collective certainly pulls it off. Locks is a sound collagist and composer who combines widescreen jazz swing with a dense beats-and-samples fussilade recalling PE producers The Bomb Squad. Add in hypnotic vocal chants, new jazz stars Angel Bat Dawid (clarinet) and Ben LaMar Gay (cornet) in rapturous form, an imperative to emerge from the horrors of 2020 with fierce new purpose, and a garden full of cicadas to add the frisson of field recording, and NOW is a pretty intense 31 minutes ... A punchy accessibility informs even their wildest excursions: an inspiring post-hip-hop, BLM era update of the Afro-futurist jazz of Phil Cochran and Horace Tapscott".