Damon Locks' Black Monument Ensemble - Live at Le Guess Who? 2021

Damon Locks' Black Monument Ensemble performed live at Le Guess Who? 2021. Curated by Matana Roberts for the festival, it marked the group's European live premiere. Now can now relive the performance with this video of the ensemble performing 'The Body Is Electric' from their latest & acclaimed album 'NOW'. 

About
The past and the future wage a perpetual dialogue with one another and Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble could be considered a testament to that very notion. What started as Damon Locks processing racial injustice in the U.S. using archival Civil Rights recordings and a sampler, mushroomed into a 15-part musical ensemble that reinvigorates and repurposes Black narratives throughout history and enchants them with harmonic, gospel-like urgency.

Le Guess Who? Recordings
The publication of this recording is part of Le Guess Who?’s ongoing expansion of the festival’s recordings archive, with 50+ recordings from past editions now freely available online. It contains audio and/or video recordings of Arooj Aftab, Mazaher, Ice Balloons, Eddie Chacon, Suuns, Alabaster dePlume, The Microphones, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Aldous Harding, Deerhunter, Girl Band, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Neneh Cherry, Mount Eerie, Selda Bağcan and many more.

Captured live at TivoliVredenburg’s Grote Zaal on Saturday, 13 November during Le Guess Who? 2021.

Damon Locks' Black Monument Ensemble:
Damon Locks - Vocalist and electronics
Dana Hall - Drummer
Arif Smith - Percussion
Angel Bat Dawid - Clarinet and Vocals
Ben Lamar Gay - Cornet
Monique Golding - Vocals
Tremaine Parker - Vocals
Erica Rene - Vocals

Direction: Dammes Kieft
Camera: Anaïs Saebu, Jonathan Sipkema, Nicky Pajkić, Rikash Gobardhan, Yuma Eekman, Dammes Kieft
Production: Claudia Rison
Montage: Jonathan Sipkema
Audio recording: Marc Broer & Casper Lucas
Audio mix: Marc Broer
Photography: Tim van Veen