Bob Sweeney
Irreversible Entanglements are a five-piece free jazz collective hailing from Philly, New York, and D.C., who, through their knotty, occasionally explosive compositions, aim to connect the cathartic liberationist impulse of punk with the mind-expanding qualities of cosmic jazz and pop music’s urgent political pulse. The quintet, comprised of vocalist and poet Camae Ayewa — also known as Moor Mother — saxophonist Keir Neuringer, trumpet player Aquiles Navarro, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Tcheser Holmes, make music that oscillates tonally between heady, hazy impressionism and crisp realism, occasionally landing in a middle ground that unites the two.
Their latest single, “Bread Out Of Stone,” premiering today on The FADER, does just that: anchored by a hypnotic, percussive pulse and brought alive by Ayewa’s ever-present vocal, it’s an unassuming, slow-building odyssey. Speaking to The FADER via email of the song, Stewart distills Irreversible Entanglements’ ethos to a short, sharp sentence: "We take the ugliest parts of the world and make them beautiful." Listen to “Bread Out of Stone” below.
