Irreversible Entanglements

​
A free jazz collective of poet musicians who
​
leave no abstractions to hide behind

​in white supremacist America

*

yes, everything's interconnected

and often in abhorrent ways

*
​
Irreversible Entanglement

plays the horrendous

​*
​
and presents the possibility

of an afro-liberated future

*
​
for everyone
​​

Picture
from Irreversible Entanglement's Facebook Page
Irreversible Entanglements quite frankly left me stunned after a mid-summer performance at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in the nation's capital — ritualism, anger and hope all throbbed from a quintet spread out over Philly, D.C. and New York. The debut album, co-released by tastemakers in punk (Don Giovanni) and jazz (International Anthem), makes stellar use of hard-funked grooves to breathe air into the band's flames.

​- Lars Gotrich (NPR)
​Irreversible Entanglements are a liberation-oriented free jazz collective formed in early 2015 by saxophonist Keir Neuringer, poet Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother) and bassist Luke Stewart, who came together to perform at a Musicians Against Police Brutality event organized after the slaying of Akai Gurley by the NYPD. Months later the group added trumpeter Aquiles Navarro and drummer Tcheser Holmes (a duo who also performed at the MAPB event) for a single day of recording at Seizure’s Palace in Brooklyn, and the full quintet’s first time playing together was captured for their debut.

In four relentless bouts of inspired fire music the instrumentalists explore and elaborate compositional ideas drawn from their deep individual studies of free jazz improvisation, but the tone of each piece is driven decisively by Ayewa’s searing poetic narrations of Black trauma, survival and power. The message is the undeniable essence of the music.

Though free jazz with voice is an uncommon approach in the modern day landscape of the genre, the spirit and subject the band channels and explores represent a return to a central tenant of the sound as it was founded – to be a vehicle for Black liberation. As creative and adventurous as any recording of contemporary avant-garde jazz but offering listeners no abstractions to hide behind, this is music that both honors and defies tradition, speaking to the present while insisting on the future.

--International Anthem
Improvisation as Openness to the New

I believe that improvisation as an approach to music and creation presents the opportunity for the world to experience something that has never happened before. And that in itself presents a very powerful statement of humanity. The fact that we’re able to channel and communicate our deep feelings, our conscious and subconscious feelings, as well as cosmic feelings, universal feelings. That can be gateways into new ways of thinking and being. So it’s a perfect vehicle, and I believe it has a unique position within music, that it has the power to change people on a molecular level.

And [it] can create a new paradigm in how to exist on this planet. It sparks different ideas and sorts of modes of thinking. And then in the process of listening to it you’re taken on a journey. And that journey inspires new sparks of inspiration and sparks new ideas. As you’re following along and allowing yourself to be fully engaged in the sound. And then you think about the physicality of what that sound is doing to your mind and to your body. I think it’s an approach to music that is ultimately about offering something new every time, just in the pure nature of it."

-- Luke Stewart (Bassist for Irreversible Entanglements) interviewed in Shadowproof
Open Horizons