Photo: Annemone Take
Free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements are back with their fifth studio album, Future Present Past, due out on March 27th through Impulse! Records. The follow-up to 2023’s Protect Your Light was mostly recorded at the historic Van Gelder Studio in October 2024, where the quintet of Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), Luke Stewart, Aquiles Navarro, Keir Neuringer, and Tcheser Holmes captured their signature blend of free jazz, diasporic liberation music, global rhythms, and spoken word. The record features longtime collaborator MOTHERBOARD, as well as guest appearances from Helado Negro.
In a statement, Irreversible Entanglements described the spirit behind the album:
“The weight of a certain world can feel cruel and unusual. Another world uplifts. We form as five and transform into billions. Billions of us on this planet sharing this journey through existence—futures full of possibility and potential, the present with all its anxieties and uncertainties, pasts as wellsprings of ancestral wisdom and histories’ warnings.
This album is five standing on the shoulders of legions. The healers, the alchemists, the rebels, the mothers and fathers who have fought and weaved and invented new ways of being, seeing, and balancing the frequencies of this planet towards trans-dimensional liberation and universal understanding.
We assume our role in this music as messengers, continuing in the tradition’s long march along the arc of the universe. Freedom fighters telling us not to lose our heads amidst imposed chaos. 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 spirit moves us to sing these fight songs, to sing fight songs, we overcome. To hold on, to keep going, together we overcome.”
The quintet had previously shared a couple of singles, ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ and ‘Vibrate Higher’, both featuring MOTHERBOARD, and last week they dropped a third cut from the upcoming Future Present Past titled ‘Juntos Vencemos’, featuring Helado Negro. All three tracks are paired with visualizers. Check them all out below for a taste of what’s coming.
