Open the Gates (International Anthem)
Irreversible Entanglements
Released November 12, 2021
JazzTimes Top 20 Jazz Albums of 2021
Arts Fuse 2021 Jazz Critics Poll Top 20 New Album
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About:
Irreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album OPEN THE GATES is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us. Let’s watch and listen, as this platter snakes through the sandy ashes of possible histories, dialogs with a nervous present, and asks to be birthed into a holographic new future. “Together in holy sound!” the band stitches patient anthems out of atmosphere. Pulling from a wider sonic vocabulary than on previous excursions, the agit-jazz found here is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalypse, as bass lurches in a tranced-out loop, horns are up in the track grooves like poltergeists playing in the streets, poetry cascades like a warrior call at a satsang, the drums both wild and refined pulse with uhuru-heart cadence. This is Irreversible Entanglements on new ground; same as the old ground.
And we need it now – the universe was awash in the sickly static veneer of anti-cosmos, of anti-nation; the halls were emptied, our shadows echoing and staining the walls of our abandoned oases – so we poured out into 2020’s wild streets. The ghosts of our labor danced around the sickness as we set fire to our old ways of thinking and moving, as we set fire to cop cars and bashed in the windows of our own rising disenfranchisement. “Open the gates!” we shouted, blessed be – we need it now!
Here come Irreversible Entanglements – Luke Stewart, the high priest on bass; Aquiles Navarro, the electric universe in human form on trumpet; Keir Neuringer, the cosmologist with the siren sound on sax; Tcheser Holmes, the griot, the myth-maker on drums; and Camae Ayewa, the Moor mother with an empyrean pen game – on this new disc with their fierce aural tectonics shifting the earth, their watery post-pangea as dirge, their punk rock ethos and crash and bang polyrhythmic super-sonic sound synesthesia in the form of OPEN THE GATES – here it comes, my Brothas and Sistas, here it comes.
Track Listing:
1. Open the Gates (Camae Ayewa / Tcheser Holmes) 02:39
2. Keys to Creation (Camae Ayewa / Luke Stewart) 13:41
3. Lágrimas Del Mar (Camae Ayewa / Aquiles Navarro) 08:03
4. Storm Came Twice (Camae Ayewa / Keir Neuringer) 07:20
5. Water Meditation (Camae Ayewa / Tcheser Holmes / Aquiles Navarro / Keir Neuringer / Luke Stewart) 20:39
6. Six Sounds (Camae Ayewa / Tcheser Holmes / Aquiles Navarro / Keir Neuringer / Luke Stewart) 10:30
7. The Port Remembers (Camae Ayewa / Tcheser Holmes / Aquiles Navarro / Keir Neuringer / Luke Stewart) 10:48
Personnel:
Camae Ayewa: voice, synth
Keir Neuringer: saxophone, synth, percussion
Aquiles Navarro: trumpet, synth
Luke Stewart: double bass, bass guitar
Tcheser Holmes: drums, percussion
Recorded on January 5th, 2021, at Rittenhouse Soundworks, Philadelphia
Produced by Camae Ayewa, Keir Neuringer, Aquiles Navarro, Luke Stewart, and Tcheser Holmes
Recorded by Michael Richelle
Mixed by Dave Vettraino
Mastered by Dave Cooley
Cover Photo by Cyrus Moussavi
Design & Layout by Craig Hansen
Executive Production by Scott McNiece & David Allen
Review:
Imagine falling through a crack in the universe, trying to keep up with the rush of sound and images as you see between gaps in space and time. Listening to a record by Irreversible Entanglements—the blend of the prophetic poetry of Camae Ayewa; the piercing horns of saxophonist Keir Neuringer and trumpeter Aquiles Navarro; the ritualistic, propulsive rhythms of bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Tcheser Holmes—is like that. Open the Gates, the group’s third album, continues down the rabbit hole anew.
“I almost saw the whole world with my own four eyes,” Ayewa declares over a hypnotic, propulsive rhythm built by Stewart (with whom—full disclosure—I work at the nonprofit CapitalBop) and Holmes on “Lágrimas Del Mar,” the third track. “So beautiful I cried on the lotus. I kissed the foot of the djembe. I cried in joy. I cried in laughter. I cried in my father’s tongue. Cause I’m so close. Because we are so close to the good news.” Ayewa proclaims like a preacher, as Neuringer’s saxophone and Navarro’s trumpet answer like a choir of the ancestors, testifying in distorted cries.
The group doesn’t let up on the explosive intensity of its first two albums. But the music across the album’s seven tracks and nearly 75 minutes is less tense and coiled, allowing one to immerse oneself more in the meditative experience being offered. While “The Port Remembers” ends the album formally, the underlying message is best summed up in the final moments of “Water Meditation.”
“We are sounding for peace,” Ayewa states softly as Stewart and Navarro spur her words on. “For peace. Healing for peace. For peace. For peace we are healing.” That’s the invitation; that’s why they Open the Gates.
Jackson Sinneberg (JazzTimes)
