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Review: The latest album from Chicago composer and improviser Ben LaMar Gay is his most fluid and assured to date. Backed by his long-time quartet of Tommaso Moretti, Matthew Davis and Will Faber, Yowzers ripples with rhythmic intuition and emotional weight, moving between playful sketches and hymn-like vignettes without ever breaking its spell. Tracks like 'the glorification of small victories' and 'I am (bells)' are recorded live, capturing the spatial intelligence of the group's shared language - an ensemble sound built through years on the road. 'for Breezy' and 'leave some for you' find Gay in a balladic register, unafraid of simplicity, while 'John, John Henry' retools folklore through polyrhythmic loops and group chant. The result is at once free and tightly woven - a folk-rooted sound that spirals into cosmic territory. Rob Frye's flute and a mini-choir add further texture, but it's Gay's ear for structure and storytelling that binds it all. These aren't just compositions but musical rituals, alive with history, invention and care. It's not jazz, not quite, not only - this is music that trusts its players as much as its audience, carrying old knowledge forward with lightness, humour and reverence. A quiet triumph.

Review: Ben LaMar Gay expands his musical lexicon with mala-morphemic glee on Yowzers, a wide-berthing new LP trading in exp points racked up as a soloist, bandleader, and key player in Chicago's music scene. Conscripting his long-running quartet (Tommaso Moretti, Matthew Davis, Will Faber) for dispatch on a new instrumental regiment, the record snaps the intimate language they've developed through years of live performance, captured here in a rare set of real-time recordings. As always, Gay pushes outward from folkloric roots, incorporating choir arrangements, in-studio experimentation, and contributions from frequent collaborators like Rob Frye and Ayanna Woods, be that through the looped minimalism of 'Yowzers' to the mournful swing of 'For Breezy' and the guttural blues of 'John, John Henry.'