Open Arms To Open Us

Chicago cornetist, multi-instrumentalist, and all-around musical mad scientist Ben LaMar Gay continues to push the edges of his genre-defying sound on 2021s surrealistically ambitious Open Arms to Open Us. The album follows several years of Gays already boundary-pushing work with artists like Makaya McCraven and Nicole Mitchell, as well as his own albums like 2018s 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, Gay has crafted an album with the giddy, disorienting quality of a David Lynch film. That might lead you to think Open Arms to Open Us will confound your ears; on the contrary, Gay pulls you deeper into his Lynchian dreamscapes, contrasting his wildly inventive genre-clashing with soulful hooks and infectious Krautrock grooves. Its a vibe thats especially redolent on the bubbly, evocatively titled Bang Melodically Bang in which Gay 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 Gay 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. Gay more than succeeds in weaving all of these seemingly disparate sounds together, and Open Arms to Open Us has the engaging feeling of walking through a kaleidoscopic multimedia art installation. ~ Matt Collar