Although Camae Ayewa, Tcheser Holmes, Luke Stewart, Aquiles Navarro, and Keir Neuringer had lived and worked in the same spaces for years, their latent connections finally crystallized in 2017 on their eponymous debut album, Irreversible Entanglements. Since then, the five-piece ensemble has crafted novel soundworlds that dramatize the poetry of Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother). Their fifth album, Future Present Past (Mar. 27, Impulse!), continues their call to action for people living through the uncertainties and dangers of today’s political environment: “It is our duty to vibrate higher, beyond the noise, above the hype, away from the novelty, over the walls, across the borders: to keep going.”
The group’s poetic statement about the album that was included in the press materials from the label delves more deeply into their intentions and anchors this review.
“We form as five and transform into billions”
Thematically, the idea of amplification is central to Future Present Past. There is a practical extension beyond the core ensemble with the inclusion of collaborators Motherboard and Helado Negro, in addition to a second-person style of poetry that brings the listener directly into the conversation. But the track “Vibrate Higher” shows that intensification and growth are also poignant points for musical commentary, too. Amid the constantly active and shifting drumset, the saxophone, trumpet, bass, and Motherboard’s vocals all work together to collectively sustain a series of grounding drones. If four members of the ensemble swirl, flitter, collide, and shatter in tandem with the drumset, at least one person diverts to maintain the slowly rising melodic line; shared, collective expression becomes a force of musical cohesion.
“…standing on the shoulders of legions. The healers, the alchemists, the rebels, the mothers and fathers…”
Irreversible Entanglements has a captivating ability to personify the characters and attitudes referenced in Ayewa’s poetry. Throughout Future Present Past, sensibilities about liberation politics are rendered in the text: solidarity is expressed by linking multilingual quotations of the phrase “we will overcome” in most of the tracks. But one of my favorite examples of this personification occurs in “Don’t Lose Your Head.” Hushed, low-pitch, double-tracked vocals from Ayewa offer a reverent undertone as she urges the listener, “It’s time to organize and plan / inspiration for your creation / the people will overstand.” Against the refrain “don’t lose your heads / messing with the gods,” overlapping solos from Navarro and Neuringer are exuberant and florid, as if oblivious to Ayewa’s warning. But while Navarro eventually falls back in line to play the chorus, Neuringer continues forging ahead on his own, giving a sense that, like Icarus, he might be at risk of “losing his head.”
“…pasts as wellsprings of ancestral wisdom…”
Irreversible Entanglements is not the first, nor will they be the last, to blend poetry, free jazz, and politics. In early interviews, ensemble members cited the Art Ensemble of New York’s collaboration with Amiri Baraka as formative to their approach. Like that 1964 recording (Black Dada Nihilismus), the instrumentalists of Irreversible Entanglements respond directly to Ayewa’s texts. In tracks like “Keep Going” and “The Messenger,” short and episodic interjections from bass, trumpet, and saxophone ornament the edges of the poetry, allowing the listener to stay focused on Ayewa’s practiced orations. Crafting her own music out of the textual elements, Ayewa carefully calibrates pitch, contour, stress, and timbre, and her recitations are just as central to the overall aesthetic.
If all this sounds heady, it is — but the sociopolitical and cultural commentary only contributes to what is already an enjoyable listening experience. Ethereal and out-of-this world sonic atmospheres, hypnotic grooves, and straight-ahead melodies and harmonies make Future Present Past eminently re-listenable. And, Ayewa’s poetry makes the group’s intentions explicitly clear: a push to turn the mantra of “together we overcome” into action.
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