Irreversible Entanglements

Camae Ayewa, vocals, synthesizer; Keir Neuringer, saxophone, synthesizer, percussion; Aquiles Navarro, trumpet, synthesizer; Luke Stewart, double bass; Tcheser Holmes, drums, percussion
(USA)

Over the past years the Philadelphia/New York/DC-based free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements has taken European audiences by storm. Originally performing as two different ensembles at a Musicians Against Police Brutality event in 2015 (in response to the NYPD slaying of Akai Gurley), the five musicians recognized a shared ethos, and shortly after, assembled as a single unit for an impromptu studio date at Seizure’s Palace in Brooklyn. A statement on their music, from the band: “…we take the stage without a map, navigate the world in deep, telepathic, contrapuntal communion with each other and the histories we’re tapping into, push into the known and unknown, and arrive at the end together.”

This is how we announced the band in 2020, when the pandemic thwarted the Irreversible Entanglements’ appearance at the Jazz Festival Ljubljana. However, on our initiative, they invested a month’s worth of work into making an exclusive video that was exclusively streamed at the festival. Today, the video is available on YT as a reminder of a time when US jazz artists were left without income and audiences without live concerts overnight. But creativity refuses to be caged. The Irreversible Entanglements continue on their wonderful artistic path with album releases (Who Sent You?, Open the Gates), music videos and concerts: making adventurous music beyond genre, both honouring and defying tradition, speaking to the present while insisting on the future.