Irreversible Entanglements, the free jazz group featuring Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), Luke Stewart, Aquiles Navarro, Keir Neuringer, and Tcheser Holmes, released their new album, Protect Your Light, today via Impulse! Records. To celebrate they’ve shared a visualizer for the title track directed by Bob Sweeney. “‘Protect Your Light’ is a celebratory evocation of communal gathering as spontaneous parade,” say the band. “It is also a sound amulet, the proper way to deploy it is to be with the people.” Watch that below and read our Notable Releases review here.
We asked the band to tell us about what inspired Protect Your Light, and all five members contributed to the list, which ranges from music to the elements and more. Read that and listen to the album below.
INFLUENCES ON IRREVERSIBLE ENTANGLEMENTS’ PROTECT YOUR LIGHT
WATER
My heart is always drawn to the water. The flora and fauna that survive there, at the point. The birds always know. – Luke Stewart
BIRDS (language of nature)
Developing a deep love for birds and the sounds of nature is something that has been inspiring me leading up to this record. -Moor Mother
THE SUN, ENERGY, UNIVERSE, MEDITATION, SILENCE, RHYTHM
Connecting to the Earth. The sun, energy, the universe, meditation, silence, rhythm is all part of what we create. – Aquiles Navarro
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
I am a firm believer in “healthy mind and body” other than musical endeavors I enjoy any activity that raises energy and healthy habits – Tchesher Holmes
PRATT PLAYGROUND
Formally known as Emerson park. I play basketball here! Funny enough this playground is where I am sprinted to create, surrounding Pratt institute. I love to play ball, but also my favorite place to people watch. I love creating storylines for each character I encounter – Tcheser Holmes
PEOPLE
The people around us. Family, love, life. – Aquiles Navarro
JAZZ
And, the jazz greats before me, and those who will come after. Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Celia Cruz. – Aquiles Navarro
JAMES BROWN’S “PAID THE COST TO BE THE BOSS”
My favorite song! I watch so many YouTube videos on James—it’s disgusting lol one thing that I think everyone should take from him- DO YOUR THING – whatever that is… – Tcheser Holmes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRmdUwF59tc
AMIRI BARAKA
“One Thursday I Found This in My Notebook” is a gentle 12-line poem by Amiri Baraka in his 1995 collection Funk Lore that I turned to often before the recording session. He was already a major inspiration for our band, as poet, performer, cultural critic, and activist. This lovely poem written by the deepest, most committed Black radical, instructing that to really arrive at the essence of love is to sound like Duke Ellington, underscores so much of the energy and feeling we wanted to put into the world with Protect Your Light. – Keir Neuringer
BLACK QUANTUM FUTURISM
A lens that my work runs through – very thankful to be a part of this collective and practice. Black Quantum Futurism inspired by work greatly. The continuing research and study is empowering. – Moor Mother
NOSTRAND AND FULTON
(Great tune by Cedar Walton!) but even better this intersection in Brooklyn. You can literally feel the Brooklyn melting pot of cultures as you listen – Tcheser Holmes
LAND BACK MOVEMENTS
Land back movements, here in the US, in Palestine, and really everywhere settler-colonial culture has dug in its exploitative, genocidal tentacles, must must must succeed for our children and their children to thrive on this beleaguered planet. To me, Land Back movements represent love of the land, they represent the connection of the difficult past to a beloved, livable future, and they represent a determination to achieve the kind of peace and justice and freedom that aren’t some nonsense bootlicker claptrap. It cannot be shouted loud enough: LAND BACK! – Keir Neuringer
SOUND
Soundness is an expression of pure invitation. Allow your ears to sift through the notes, to find the Spirit. Let it change you, let it open your heart and mind. – Luke Stewart
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Irreversible Entanglements play Hopscotch and Basilica Hudson (with GY!BE) this weekend and have other dates this fall:
Irreversible Entanglements Tour Dates:
Fri. Sept. 8 – Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Music Festival
Sat. Sept. 9 – Hudson, NY @ Basilica SoundScape Presents
Sun. Sep. 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Solar Myth
Sat. Nov. 4 – Berlin, DE @ Jazzfest Berlin
Mon. Nov. 6 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
Fri. Nov. 10 – Paris, FR @ Festival d’Automne à Paris
Sat. Nov. 11 – Rotterdam, NL @ LantarenVenster
Sun. Nov. 12 – Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who?
Tue. Nov. 14 – Dublin, IE @ Whelans
Wed. Nov. 15 – London, UK @ EFG London Jazz Festival