Damon Locks & D-Composed Announce Collaborative Album DAWNING

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The album was recorded at The Land School in Chicago with violinists Khelsey Zarraga and Anya Brumfield, violist Seth Pae, and cellist Lindsey Sharpe.

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Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist, musician, and deejay Damon Locks and Black chamber music collective D-Composed have announced their collaborative debut album Dawning, out via International Anthem on LP, CD, and digitally December 4. A lead single from the album, 'We Stay Beginning,' is out now on all music platforms. Locks and D-Composed have also announced details of the album's release show, which takes place December 11 in the auditorium of The Land School in Chicago, the same location w here Dawning was recorded earlier this year. 'We Stay Beginning' and preorders/presaves of Dawning are available here .

Dawning was recorded in the auditorium of The Land School, Rebuild Foundation's headquarters in a reconstituted former elementary school on Chicago's south side, w here D-Composed and International Anthem have been creative partners-in-residence since its opening in 2025. The album's sonic palette pairs Locks' live sampling, beat k now ledge, and spoken word swagger with D-Composed's uniquely improvisational take on the string quartet. D-Composed's quartet in this instance features violinists Khelsey Zarraga and Anya Brumfield, violist Seth Pae, and cellist Lindsey Sharpe.

The Land School itself is the result of a massive undertaking by Rebuild Foundation and its founder, artist Theaster Gates, who for the last couple decades have transformed disused spaces into 'sites of creative production, artistic experimentation, radical hospitality, archival stewardship and land cultivation.' At The Land School, public programming produced by creative partners-in-residence supports Rebuild's mission to expand proximity and access to cultural production on the South Side of Chicago. 'What began as a reflection on our relationship to the land became a sonic experiment reflecting blackness in the present moment through hope, rage, protest, and resistance,' say Locks and Zarraga in their co-written liner notes for the album.

What we hear on Dawning is what Locks and D-Composed brought to the auditorium on April 11, 2026. It is a performance that Locks and Zarraga say was meant to be 'a sound experience that pulls you in and wrings you out.' The recorded document is hard to argue with. From sublime and consonant downbeat grooves to genuinely frightening, dissonant and anxious meltdowns, the six pieces that make up the album cover so much musical ground with such an expert touch that it can be difficult to remember that we're listening to something that occurred all at once in the same room.

A looped 2-bar slow jam guides listeners into the album's lead single, 'We Stay Beginning.' Locks' skills as a mic controller are on full display, in a similar way to his 2024 spoken beat masterpiece List of Demands , though here the performance is much further out, deconstructed dub-style à la his contributions to Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra. 'We stay in full bloom' cries Locks as violinists Zarraga and Brumfield trade ad-libs beneath decaying manipulations of vocal processing.

On December 11, Locks and D-Composed gather for an album release celebration and performance, co-presented by International Anthem in the auditorium of The Land School in Chicago, the same location w here Dawning was recorded earlier this year. Entry is free with a suggested donation of $20; RSVP here .

Dawning is out December 4; preorder/presave it here .

Dawning (On Us)

We Stay Beginning

Jet Black Ink (feat. Pauli The PSM)

Reflecting (On Us)/Strange City

Mourning Loop

Don't Recede (feat. Monique Golding)

D-Composed:

Khelsey Zarraga - Violin

Anya Brumfield - Violin

Seth Pae - Viola

Lindsey Sharpe - Cello

Kori Coleman - Executive and Artistic Director

Damon Locks - Electronics, Voice

Monique Golding - Voice on 'Don't Recede'

Pauli The PSM - Vibraphone* on Jet Black Ink (*sample from 'For The Plants' performed live at The Land School)

Recorded by Alex Inglizian at The Land School

Mixed by Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago IL

Mastered by David Allen at International Anthem Studios, Portland OR

Artwork by Damon Locks

Liner Notes by Damon Locks and Khelsey Zarraga

Move Me Soul original photos by Sarah-Ji/Love +Struggle featuring Mary Thomas & Bryonna Young

Damon Locks is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist, musician, and deejay. K now n for decades of varied projects in Chicago's underground music & art scenes, Locks' CV starts in the late 1980s with the band Trenchmouth, and is highlighted by work with The Eternals (co-led by Trenchmouth bandmate Wayne Montana), Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra, collaborations with Nicole Mitchell, Ben LaMar Gay, and many others. In recent years Locks has traversed almost every media discipline, including sound/animation work using unheard Sun Ra recordings from Experimental Sound Studio's archive (with Terri Kapsalis, Wayne Montana, and Rob Shaw ); various collaborations with contemporary dancers & choreographers including Ayesha Jaco and Move Me Soul, and Tara Aisha Willis; teaching work with incarcerated artists for the Prison and Neighborhood Arts/Education Project at Stateville maximum security prison; and producing cover art for dozens of albums, including several International Anthem releases by Makaya McCraven, Angel Bat Dawid, Irreversible Entanglements, and more.

In 2018 Locks began work on a new project called Black Monument Ensemble . BME's debut album Where Future Unfolds was recorded live in Chicago at the Garfield Park Botanical Conservatory and released in 2019 by International Anthem. The recording documented the first time that the project was presented in a fully expressed format, w here Locks debuted the BME large ensemble and turned his poetry, collages & compositions into a soaring experiential performance. Locks & BME's second album NOW was created in the final throes of Summer 2020, following months of pandemic-induced fear & isolation, the explosion of social unrest, struggle & violence in the streets, and as the certain presence of a new reality had fully settled in. Set up safely in the garden behind Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio, the music was recorded in only a few takes, capturing the first times members of BME had ever played or sang the tunes. For Locks, the impetus was more about getting together to commune and make art than it was about producing an album. In his words: 'It was about offering a new thought. It was about resisting the darkness. It was about expressing possibility. It was about asking the question, 'Since the future has unfolded and taken a new and dangerous shape... what happens NOW ?''

In July 2023, International Anthem released Locks's project New Future City Radio , a duo collaboration with Rob Mazurek w here the two artists contemplate community, transformation, and the future through the programmatic format of a pirate radio station for the people. In January 2025 Locks released List of Demands , his first foray into creating an entire album from spoken and text-based work. Later in 2025, Locks stepped down from his position as Board President of the Prison and Neighborhood Arts/Education Project. Locks is a 2025 recipient of the Creative Capital Award and the Evolving Democracy Fellowship through Project&.

Historians of art and culture may not fully account for the fact that Black culture and creativity are part of the foundation of every musical institution we see today. D-Composed, a Black chamber music collective, exists to ensure that we never forget it.

Rooted on Chicago's South side, D-Composed is comprised of versatile, Black-classically trained musicians who move between all genres – from classical to electronic, ambient, R&B, and hip-hop – led by their mission to uplift and empower society through the music of Black composers. The collective aims to help redefine and expand the definition of composer to create space and celebrate all forms of Black music-making, and to serve as a bridge between past and present, connected via the communal power of Black music.

For this collective, music is not just entertainment; music is a storytelling tool that educates and inspires. D-Composed performances and engagements take place in galleries, museums, gardens, schools, and community centers, fusing disciplines and mediums such as visual arts, film, poetry, dance, storytelling. But unapologetic Blackness is at the core of every D-Composed engagement, and the people who make up the experience – the musicians, creatives, and community members – are all at the heart of the impact. D-Composed strives to not just perform but create space with all their engagements – space for people to come together for a joyful dance, party, rest, or reflection, and to share love of music with others.

As a Black collective that focuses exclusively on the works of Black composers, D-Composed ensures that it partners with institutions that have a proven commitment to communities of color. The collective's work and impact has both animated and transcended their home base in Chicago, as their venues and presentation partners have included: The Poetry Foundation, Sundance Film Festival, Theaster Gates' Rebuild Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, TUCCA in São Paulo, Brazil, TEDx, the Chicago Bulls, and the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago (w here they were the inaugural performers at the OPC opening in May 2026).

While merging the worlds of contemporary music and classical, D-Composed has collaborated with esteemed artists across genres and disciplines, including: JLin, Silkroad Ensemble, Kahil El'Zabar, Angel Bat Dawid, jamila woods, Davóne Tines, Sudan Archives, Chassol, and New York Times Bestselling Author Tricia Hersey (founder of The Nap Ministry).

The walls that exist to keep Black people out of America's most beloved cultural institutions are meant to be scaled and then dismantled by the creative architects who are bold enough to build against the status quo. The objective meaning of the collective's name embodies that boldness in action. D-Composed's work breaks down preconceived notions, barriers, and opinions of what people think 'classical' music should be, as they re-write the narrative to reflect what the classical world could be.

Photo Credit: Ashley Mia

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/article/Photos-Damon-Locks-D-Composed-to-Release-Collaborative-Album-DAWNING-20261006)._