Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Irreversible Entanglements: Protect Your Light

Irreversible Entanglements: Protect Your Light

By Chris May
August 24, 2023
View read count

Irreversible Entanglements: Protect Your Light

If ever there was a band which screamed to be taken up by Impulse! (or Strata-East back in the day), it is the semi-free agit-jazz quintet Irreversible Entanglements. Now, after three albums with the on-song but tiny International Anthem label, it has happened and, hopefully, greater exposure and recognition will follow.

IE came together in 2015 when poet

Camae Ayewa

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Camae Ayewa (a.k.a.

Moor Mother

poet / spoken word

" data-original-title="" title="">Moor Mother), saxophonist

Keir Neuringer

saxophone

" data-original-title="" title="">Keir Neuringer and bassist

Luke Stewart

bass, electric

" data-original-title="" title="">Luke Stewart took part in a Musicians Against Police Brutality demonstration against the NYPD. A few months later, trumpeter

Aquiles Navarro

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Aquiles Navarro and drummer

Tcheser Holmes

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Tcheser Holmes joined the band. In 2023, the lineup remains unchanged.

Actually, to call IE agit-jazz is to invite misperception. But that is the way the band chose to be described in the liner notes for Protect Your Light's most recent predecessor, Open The Gates (International Anthem, 2021, reviewed here). Maybe it is a US thing. But in the UK, agit-jazz suggests the trite, ephemeral sloganeering that characterizes much so-called protest music. The value of that kind of lyric is slight, for it does not educate or expand consciousness and with every iteration its impact is diminished and the listener's attention wanders.

What gives rebellious lyrics impact and staying power is the degree of poetry within them.

Fela Kuti

saxophone
1938 - 1997

" data-original-title="" title="">Fela Kuti's lyrics had poetry by the truck load, which is one reason why 26 years after his passing his audience continues to grow. Ayewa's lyrics are poetic, too. Repeated listening reveals new perspectives. This is not, perhaps, so evident on the opening track and first single, "Free Love" (see the YouTube below), which is pretty straightforward.

No argument, though, with the wordage which accompanies Protect Your Light. Avoiding "agit-jazz," it describes IE's work as "music that both honors and defies tradition, speaking to the present while insisting on the future." The eight pieces on the album address both oppressors and oppressed through a sequence of lamentations, rallying cries and battle hymns. Like Kuti's music, IE's is as much an exhortation to the put upon to seize the time as it is a denunciation of injustice and exploitation.

IE is a semi-free band in the same way that London tenor saxophonist

Binker Golding

saxophone, tenor

" data-original-title="" title="">Binker Golding and drummer

Moses Boyd

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Moses Boyd's band Binker & Moses is semi-free. There is a jumping-off point for each piece, a bass ostinato or drum rhythm or horn motif, from which the instrumental aspect develops. Stewart and Holmes provide an insistent pulse, Navarro and Neuringer add more or less harmolodic counterpoints. Indeed, comparisons with

Ornette Coleman

saxophone, alto
1930 - 2015

" data-original-title="" title="">Ornette Coleman's quartet with

Don Cherry

trumpet
1936 - 1995

" data-original-title="" title="">Don Cherry frequently suggest themselves.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Free Love; Protect Your Light; Our Land Back; Soundness; Root Branch; Celestial Pathways; Sunshine; Degree Of Freedom.

Personnel

Irreversible Entanglements

band / ensemble / orchestra

Camae Ayewa

vocals

Keir Neuringer

saxophone

Aquiles Navarro

trumpet

Luke Stewart

bass, electric

Tcheser Holmes

drums

Additional Instrumentation

Janice A. Lowe: piano (3, 7); Lester St. Louis: cello (4, 8); Sovei: vocals (7).

Album information

Title: Protect Your Light | Year Released: 2023 | Record Label: Impulse! Records

PREVIOUS / NEXT

What Is The Purpose Of Your Website?...
< Previous

Dave Holland Circa 1976
Next >

Irreversible Entanglements Concerts

Oct 14 Tue

Irreversible Entanglements

Pardon, To Tu
Warsaw, Poland

Support All About Jazz

All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.