Chicago cornetist, multi-instrumentalist, and all-around musical mad scientist
Ben LaMar Gay
continues to push the edges of his genre-defying sound on 2021's surrealistically ambitious
Open Arms to Open Us
. The album follows several years of
Gay
's already boundary-pushing work with artists like
Makaya McCraven
and
Nicole Mitchell
, as well as his own albums like 2018's equally expansive
Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun
. Loosely triangulating the kinetic post-rock of
Tortoise
, the cross-pollinated pop experimentalism of
David Byrne
, and the globally minded avant-garde jazz of
Don Cherry
,
has crafted an album with the giddy, disorienting quality of a
David Lynch
film. That might lead you to think
will confound your ears; on the contrary,
pulls you deeper into his Lynchian dreamscapes, contrasting his wildly inventive genre-clashing with soulful hooks and infectious Krautrock grooves. It's a vibe that's especially redolent on the bubbly, evocatively titled "Bang Melodically Bang" in which
croons in a serpentine stream of consciousness against a swirling stew of jazzy bass, drums, and electronic bleeps. Yet more vibrant stylistic mash-ups arrive throughout the album as
brings on board a slew of guest performers, including pairing with Chicago indie duo
Ohmme
for the spiraling prog-R&B number "Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks on You" and British-Rwandan singer
Dorothee Munyaneza
on the poignantly dissonant African folk song-meets-
Steve Reich
composition "Nyuzura." We also get equally potent collaborations with vocalist
Ayanna Woods
, cellist
Tomeka Reid
, singer/performance artist
Onye Ozuzu
, and others.
more than succeeds in weaving all of these seemingly disparate sounds together, and
has the engaging feeling of walking through a kaleidoscopic multimedia art installation. ~ Matt Collar