Irreversible Entanglements' three previous LPs for
International Anthem showcased a weave of free, resistance-oriented, vanguard jazz, bracing spoken word, and liberation for community edification.
Protect Your Light, the band's fourth studio effort, marks its debut for
Impulse! They recorded at Figure 8 in Brooklyn and
Rudy Van Gelder's legendary jazz studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Protect Your Light is focused and fierce; it is, in places, measurably different as the band --
Camae Ayewa (aka
Moor Mother), saxophonist/clarinetist
Keir Neuringer, trumpeter
Aquiles Navarro, bassist
Luke Stewart, and drummer
Tcheser Holmes -- learned to use the studio as another musical instrument, employing its possibilities for space, textures, dynamics, overdubbing, and intricate mixing. The musicians all play multiple instruments.
Set opener "Free Love," introduced by
Ayewa, liberates the concept of free love from the 20th century's purely sexual connotations toward tender, even spiritual manifestations. Propelled by haunted, hypnotic basslines (electric and upright), and strident reeds and brass playing in tandem, multiple layers of percussion and electronics join Afro- Latin grooves and modal post-bop. "Our Land Back" offers dialogic arco bass, spectral piano, and careening drums, framing trumpet and saxophone lines. The players interact, fall back, and complement one another as the tune swirls and bleeds.
Ayewa enters with a polemic: "... Weaving past futures/and not-yet threads of a story/ending in the present/always late arriving/who holds our stories/who takes our land/who knows what happenedâ?¦." Horns and drums trade fours while bass and trumpet shift vamps and push her argument forward. The title track is a rhythm orgy, juxtaposing cadences and harmonies of global carnival music from New Orleans to Rio de Janiero and beyond. The circular processional progression weds a nursery rhyme to a second-line chant to the freedom of collective joy. "Soundness" interweaves edgy sax and trumpet solos, recalling the
Ornette Coleman Quartet, as bass and drums frame a polyrhythmic parlance.
Ayewa asserts a manifesto in celebration of secure space, a room for hopes, contemplation, decisions. It's a joyful noise indeed. "Root<=>Branch" (an homage to late trumpeter and close ally
Jamie Branch) finds
Ayewa chanting her name above a meld of African percussion, ambient electronics, and rippling spiritual jazz in a swaying exhortation to pursue freedom -- inner and outer -- at any cost. "Sunshine" is a tender, bittersweet ballad sung by guest poet, singer, and pianist
Janice Lowe. Aesthetically, it feels spiritually akin to
Fontella Bass singing with the
Art Ensemble of Chicago on the 1970 soundtrack to
Les Stances a Sophie. Closer "Degrees of Freedom" is trademark
Irreversible Entanglements with frenetic, ever-shifting polyrhythms, dueling bass and cello (with guest
Lester St. Louis), and soaring horns framing
Ayewa's sensual, committed lyric.
Fans of
IE will embrace the changes:
Protect Your Light expands the group's already abundant gifts. Anyone -- fan or newcomer -- open to avant jazz and spoken word will register delight, surprise, and possibly awe at the creativity and inspiration on the album. ~ Thom Jurek
![Pharoah [Expanded Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0680899800822_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Pharoah [Expanded Edition]")
