Where Future Unfolds started life as a solo project for US musician and activist Damon Locks. It began as a sound collage piece, using samples from civil rights era speeches and recordings in improvised performances with a drum machine. Over the past four years the project has accumulated various other Chicago based musicians, who now form Locks’s Black Monument Ensemble. Contributors include clarinettist Angel Bat Dawid and drummer Dana Hall, as well as dancers from the Chicago youth dance company Move Me Soul and alumni from Chicago Children's Choir.

Locks is well known in Chicago’s underground music scene. He first appeared as a member of the rock band Trenchmouth in 1988. Since then the vocalist and percussionist has gone on to play with Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, Nicole Mitchell, Ben LaMar Gay, and others.

Where Future Unfolds is a live recording of The Black Monument Ensemble's debut performance at the Garfield Park Botanical Conservatory on the West Side of Chicago. Released by International Anthem on 31 May, it’s now available to pre-order.

Damon Locks is interviewed in the forthcoming July 2019 issue of The Wire.