About

Led by the poet and musician Moor Mother, the jazz ensemble evokes our American topography, both physically and psychologically, by capturing what’s in the news and what’s underneath that surface.

Perhaps the group’s most remarkable attribute is that while anger is ever-present, the fury is tempered, the music focused and controlled. As Ayewa’s inquisitive gaze turns inward on the sinewy Latin-tinged groove of “No Mas,” she remains resolved “to love ourselves fully.” Built from a walking bassline and clanging hand percussion, “Bread Out of Stone” never rises above a simmer to convey the message of resilience in the face of oppression. The shrieking, flailing properties of free jazz are often interpreted as unbridled anger, rising as it did during the heights of the Civil Rights era and inner-city unrest. And while Irreversible Entanglements draws on that tradition, they aren’t merely mimicking an older version of jazz. They are making it resonate now, emphasizing it as a music of ritual, much like Ayewa’s other loves, like gospel and blues. It conveys all of the urgency of her raw, earlier work now across a greater vista, untethered by time yet wholly in the present. -  Pitchfork