BEN LAMAR GAY – Yowzers – LP – Purple Vinyl

LP – Indies Exclusive Limited Edition 140g “”Ipomoea Jalapa” (Purple) Colour Vinyl in heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with IARC 2025 obi strip, insert booklet & poly-lined inner sleeve. Pressed at Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K @ SST.

Yowzers is a new album by Chicago composer, improvisor, instrumentalist and musical folklorist Ben LaMar Gay. The twelve track collection is a leap forward in the lexicon of Gays recorded output, and a veritable masterwork of ancient inner-body rhythms and intuitive melodic storytelling.

Its worth mentioning that a leap forward for Gay is no small feat. The musical ground he has covered in the last decade, both as a bandleader and collaborator, is immense. His de facto debut albumthe 2018 compilation Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sunproperly introduced the world to Gay by placing fifteen stylistically diverse tracks from seven then-unreleased albums next to one another, letting the populace outside of Cook County in on an unintentionally best-kept-secret that Chicagoans had already been marveling at for quite some time. That secret has become even more open in the years since, with the full unveiling of those seven previously-unreleased albums, the release of his critically-acclaimed 2021 song cycle Open Arms To Open Us, and the explosive free sonics of 2022s Certain Reveries.

In addition to being featured on a staggering number of International Anthem releases (including albums by Makaya McCraven, jaimie branch, Damon Locks, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly), Gay is one of the most prolific collaborators in creative music today. He makes active contributions to Mike Reeds Separatist Party, Joshua Abramss Natural Information Society, Theaster Gatess Black Monks, and many more. He is also a long-time participant in Chicagos legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Suffice to say, his credentials are astonishing and the scope of his interests and abilities is seemingly limitless, with Yowzers representing the latest redrawing of that ever-expanding creative borderline.

Much of the music on Yowzers features his working quartet with Tommaso Moretti (drums, percussion, voice), Matthew Davis (tuba, piano, bells, voice), and Will Faber (guitar, ngoni, bells, voice). But the unlisted feature here is Gays own ability to summon and unleash the unique strengths of his collaborators. The quartet material leans into a vocabulary that the group has developed over the course of several years together on the road; and the repertoire delivers an arresting cocktail of pulsing and free rhythms that somehow swing alongside a gathering of melodic phrases that sweep the outer-reaches of harmony with nostalgic echoes of family songs from the living room.

Building a language, or taking a while to build a languageits like every other thing, says Gay. These stories are passed around through melody. You write a story and you share the story with individuals, and then you allow their individuality to embellish the story and take it on in another way. That person is a whole universe. Its about trusting these peopletrusting the people you leave something with, just like people trust their kids and their grandkids to carry a thing on. To not give it all away. To keep it in this tightly-knit body and to just keep it going.

Its not a new concept for Gay. One uniting factor in his deep, multi-faceted discography is a never-ending commitment to taking the stories of the past and pushing them outward, filtered through a sense of self, to keep that information moving.

Information moves through Yowzers via the intuitive physicality of Gays creative polyrhythmic constructions as he covertly delivers familiar folk tunes and tales. Its the most natural thing, says Gay. Thats how the world is. There are overlapping rhythms all around us, and so it reminds you of the reality of the world when you hear them. Its a loop and the loop is always changing.

Yowzers is ripe with the fine mash of that loops changes and diffusions, recalling the high-minded freedom of Liberation Music Orchestra, the abstract boom-bap balladry of Georgia Anne Muldrow, the unbridled rhythms and sandpaper bellows of Bukka White, the harmolodic cartoon glory of Arthur Blythes Illusions, or the oft-copped but rarely distilled patterns of Nan Vasconcelos. More amalgam than pendulum swing; a fresh thought made up of old ideas, like some imaginary Sacred Heart Ensemble led by Elvin Jones and Rashid Ali. Its all there, filtered through an improvisational approach and a lifetime of stories and secrets embodied. For a man who has inhabited and traveled these continents so extensively, its safe to call this work true Americana, despite what that word might mean to the average white person in the United States.

A big part of the language this quartet has developed is spatial, says Gay. Its seeing and hearing it live. Translating that language to a studio situation is a tough task, even for a seasoned crew. Youre dealing with a thing that is older than the industry that sells it, and if youve never experienced those bodies in a room there can be a disconnect. Striving to document the magic of those live moments, to great end, Gay chose to track the quartet pieces (the glorification of small victories, there, inside the morning glory, I am (bells), and cumulus) for Yowzers live, in real time, seated with his bandmates in a small circle at Palisade Studios in Chicago.

The spectrum of the album is widened by a batch of music created via Gays highly successful approach to composing in-studio, augmented with contributions from his bandmates, instrumentalist Rob Frye, and a mini-choir comprising vocalists Ayanna Woods, Tramaine Parker, and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu. This straying from the quartet material throughout the course of the record acts as an expansion of detail rather than an interruption of continuity.

All together, the pacing and flow of Yowzers is proof-positive of Gays practiced grasp on how the album format can traverse such a breadth of atmospheres. The titular album opener yowzers is a simple, soulful, three-chord piano and vocal repetition nestled in the hypnotically swelling effect of the Woods/Parker/Nwaogwugwu choir. The undecorated lyrics leave ample room for a listener to comprehend references to the binding existential crises of our times. Its a Blues that everyone in the world should feel in their bones:

Aint gon snow no more x4
Rain gon pour and pour x4
Fire dont stop no more x4

for Breezy, a could-be New Orleans dirge, straddles the deep sigh of a heavy sadness and the sweet lift of a fond look back, echoing the most contemplative moments of Duke Ellingtons small group arrangements. Gays clustered synth chording sets the scene while Fryes breathy flute and Morettis delicate brushwork are positioned front-and-center along with a synthetic staticthe nagging question of darkness even as beauty blooms. Gays flugelhorn enters at the 1:35 mark, maneuvering slowly around Frye and locking the vibe into place. Its a gorgeous and fitting tribute to an old comrade.

John, John Henry begins with doomy oscillations and click-clack electronic rhythm loops hovering atop a contextually demented swing beat from Moretti. Enter Gay and his choir, digging into a take on the dusty-yet-timeless tale of man versus machine, an update we didnt know we needed and an entrance we didnt know we wanted. The way the groups vocal rhythms hit here is a classic example of the Gay conundrum: an idea that reads as challenging on paper but sounds simple to the ear and feels intuitive to the body. With spectacles underfoot and charts out the window, the listener sings along, unencumbered by know-how. Its all in service of Gays ongoing exploration and expansion of folklore in his workarguably the one concept that bridges the gap between all of the disparate elements of his oeuvre.

This bottomless bag of tricks never induces fatigue, instead allowing for breaths and bites as neededthe quick-vibe banana peel windup of rollerskates; the endlessly psychedelic metallic rhythm chant of the albums centerpiece I am (bells); and the triumphant free-folk shouts of the glorification of small victories, which is a drastic and collaborative quartet rework of a composition originally recorded for Gays album Grapes that serves as further evidence of his steady crews interpretive powers.

How, though, does Gay end a collection that covers so much ground? The sweetest sendoff is often the one that sounds like a beginning. The album closer leave some for youa balladeers kiss as the sun comes uppairs a deeply disintegrated series of rhythmic loops with a diddley bow shuffle, ushered by the sturdy-yet-understated swing of Morettis kit. Gays sweetly intoned low-register lilt is front and center with an affirmation delivered as an earworm. The simple melody carries it home:

You look brand new today
Not cause you need it
Just cause you want it
New

Tracklist:

1. yowzers
2. the glorification of small victories
3. there, inside the morning glory
4. roller skates
5. for Breezy
6. I am (bells)
7. promontory
8. John, John Henry
9. damn you cute
10. cumulus
11. touch
12. leave some for you