Irreversible Entanglements - Future, Present, Past

Irreversible Entanglements return to Impulse! with Future Present Past, their second recording for the label and a bold continuation of their ecstatic, politically charged sound. Largely recorded at Van Gelder Studio, the album brings together atmospheric jazz, global music traditions and spoken word in a sweeping meditation on time — possibility in the future, instability in the present, and ancestral knowledge carried forward from the past. Formed in Brooklyn in 2015, the quintet — Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), Luke Stewart, Aquiles Navarro, Keir Neuringer and Tcheser Holmes — operate as a single, responsive unit. Ayewa’s voice moves between incantation and exhortation, while trumpet and saxophone spiral above a restless, propulsive rhythm section. Where their previous Impulse! release Protect Your Light drew widespread acclaim, Future Present Past pushes further, grounding its urgency in lineage and collective struggle. It’s music that honours those who came before while insisting on new ways of seeing, hearing and being.