Irreversible Entanglements

Today, Irreversible Entanglements share “Protect Your Light,” the title track/visualizer from their new album, Protect Your Light, out today on the legendary Impulse! Records. Over the course of Protect Your Light, Irreversible Entanglements —poet/vocalist Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), bassist Luke Stewart, saxophonist Keir Neuringer, drummer Tcheser Holmes, and trumpeter Aquiles Navarro unite to deliver an unconditional statement of intent and rhythm. Those dance-rhythms emanate from “Protect Your Light,” which is based on a riff from Navarro, and which the album’s liner notes (written by Washington, DC poet, historian, and alter-destiny prophet Thomas Stanley) say are charged with “the triumphant swagger of a Haitian rara band” and a myriad of Carnival-ing voices.

“‘Protect Your Light’ is a celebratory evocation of communal gathering as spontaneous parade,” says the band. “It is also a sound amulet, the proper way to deploy it is to be with the people.”

Irreversible Entanglements will celebrate the release of Protect Your Light with a string of performances this weekend. Tonight, they’ll play Hopscotch Music Festival Raleigh, NC before heading north for special performances at Hudson’s Basilica SoundScape on Saturday and Philadelphia’s Solar Myth on Sunday. A full list of tour dates is below with tickets are on sale now.

Protect Your Light features contributions from the greater members of Irreversible Entanglements’ community — pianist Janice A. Lowe, cellist Lester St. Louis and vocalist Sovei — who help illuminate the band’s musical dexterity and expand the breadth of its beautiful consciousness. These eight pieces were composed both individually and collectively, with some themes brand-new, and others rooted in Irreversible Entanglements’ spirited, wholly improvised live performances; with Ayewa adding words that elevate what she calls the band’s “in-communion” practices.

What defines this band, the beauty of Protect Your Light, and its representation of the moment, is a love of the people, of the Black musical tradition, of each other, and of playing it like they’re saying it. Get to that love on time — don’t force history to guide you.