Ben Lamar Gay - Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (IA11 Edition)

Format: LP
Catalogue No.: IARC17LP11
Barcode: 0634457197879
Release Date: 28 Mar 2025
Genre: Jazz

140g Classic Black LP in heavyweight jacket, with 12x12" insert booklet, IA OBI strip & printed poly-lined inner sleeve. Pressed at Pallas in Germany.

TRACKLIST:
1 - Vitis Labrusca
2 - Muhal
3 - Music for 18 Hairdressers: Braids & Fractals
4 - Jubilee
5 - A Seasoning Called Primavera
6 - Miss Nealie Burns
7 - Me, Jayve & the Big Bee
8 - Uvas
9 - Galveston
10 - Swim Swim
11 - Kunni
12 - Melhor Que Tem
13 - Gator Teeth
14 - 7th Stanza
15 - Oh No...Not Again!

"There is no one universe for Ben LaMar Gay, he just sonic booms from one sound to another." - NPR Music

Ben LaMar Gay’s de facto debut album, Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun, was our attempt to introduce the legendary Chicago composer / improvisor / renaissance man to the rest of the world with a compilation of tracks from “7 albums he made over 7 years but never made the effort to actually release. ” The material showcases Gay’s penchant for genre-hopping—from Reich-ian soundscape voyages to Don Cherry-esque polyrhythm treks to Jorge Ben-style vocal-and-string earworms—while keeping his singular musical voice in focus.

In the years since its release, this long OOP collection has become a touchstone, foreshadowing the breadth and scope of Ben LaMar Gay’s output since. The songs-between-the-songs warped Soul Americana madness and beauty of Open Arms To Open Us, the unhinged long form freedom of Certain Reveries—each fresh mode would defy expectation if without the context established by Downtown Castles. To quote the OG press release, “to call it ‘eclectic’ would only scratch the surface. This music is everything.”