Audiopile Review: A mainstay of the Chicago underground scene for the past thirty-five years, beginning as vocalist of the indie rock outfit Trenchmouth before moving his way through the burgeoning post-rock scene of the mid ‘90s, Damon Locks eventually became an integral contributor to the International Anthem label with both his Black Monument Ensemble as well as numerous guest appearances throughout the imprint. But within the label’s extensive talent pool, Locks remains a relatively slept on figure, never garnering the same attention given to the likes of Makaya McCraven, Rob Mazurek or Jeff Parker. Don’t let the lack of hype stop you from taking the time to investigate his newest, because List of Demands is one of the better LPs we’ve heard from the label in recent memory. And that is sayin’ something when considering IARC’s recent run of excellent full lengths by Jeremiah Chiu, Carlos Niño, SML and Anna Butterss. Like so much of what we love on the label, jazz is merely the starting point for List Of Demands, but it’s not the final result. Locks calls back to his own idiosyncratic course on IARC, merging the deep grooves from his spiritually-minded Black Monument Ensemble LPs with the space-y radio-collage experiments explored alongside Mazurek on their New Future City Radio. Basing much of the album on lo-fi loops culled from well-worn gospel and soul records, the hypnotic, minimalist grooves lock into place under his politically charged spoken word poetry, while uest turns from cornetist Ben LaMar Gay and violinist Macie Stewart are spliced into the mix, recalling the fractal future jazz and transportive post-rock Locks came up in. It’s a head-spinning, sampledelic brew that calls on the past while boldly looking forward. It’s also the finest moment yet from Damon Locks. Sleep no more.