Irreversible Entanglements Announce New Album Future Present Past, Share Powerful Double Single
- The Night Temple
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements have announced their fifth studio album, Future Present Past, arriving March 27 via Impulse!. The announcement arrives alongside a striking double single, “Don’t Lose Your Head” and “Vibrate Higher,” both featuring longtime collaborator MOTHERBOARD, a bold introduction to what promises to be one of the group’s most expansive and politically resonant releases to date.
The two tracks showcase contrasting yet complementary sides of the band’s evolving sound. “Don’t Lose Your Head” unfolds as a tightly coiled rallying cry, propelled by drummer Tcheser Holmes’ agile groove and grounded by Luke Stewart’s bass, while vocalists Camae Ayewa and MOTHERBOARD deliver impassioned yet restrained performances. In contrast, “Vibrate Higher” leans into a looser, more atmospheric approach, reflecting its origins as a live recording at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works. The track builds from Keir Neuringer’s ambient synth textures into a dense, swirling percussion-driven crescendo before morphing into a hypnotic rhythmic vamp, an example of the collective’s signature “composed-in-the-moment” approach that blurs improvisation and structure.
Future Present Past was largely recorded at the historic Van Gelder Studio in October 2024, with additional production and editing carried out over the following year. Working with longtime collaborators Jonathan Schenke and Andrew Lappin, the quintet expanded their sonic palette with guest contributions from MOTHERBOARD and Helado Negro. The album reflects Irreversible Entanglements at the height of their improvisational and compositional synergy, weaving diasporic liberation music into a broader meditation on time, ancestry, and collective survival.
The band shared a powerful statement on the album’s themes:
“The weight of a certain world can feel cruel and unusual. Another world uplifts. We form as five and transform into billions. Billions of us on this planet sharing this journey through existence—futures full of possibility and potential, the present with all its anxieties and uncertainties, pasts as wellsprings of ancestral wisdom and histories’ warnings. This album is five standing on the shoulders of legions. The healers, the alchemists, the rebels, the mothers and fathers who have fought and weaved and invented new ways of being, seeing, and balancing the frequencies of this planet towards trans-dimensional liberation and universal understanding. We assume our role in this music as messengers, continuing in the tradition’s long march along the arc of the universe. Freedom fighters telling us not to lose our heads amidst imposed chaos. It is our duty to vibrate higher, beyond the noise, above the hype, away from the novelty, over the walls, across the borders: to keep going. The spirit moves us to sing these fight songs, to sing fight songs, we overcome. To hold on, to keep going, together we overcome.”
Formed in 2015 at a Musicians Against Police Brutality protest in Brooklyn, Irreversible Entanglements have built a decade-long legacy at the intersection of experimental jazz, punk energy, and political expression. The group, comprised of Ayewa (also known as Moor Mother), Stewart, Aquiles Navarro, Neuringer, and Holmes, has become known for deeply improvised music rooted in activism and collective expression. Their 2023 Impulse! debut Protect Your Light earned critical acclaim and appeared on multiple year-end best-of lists, including The New York Times, Pitchfork, and Stereogum.
With Future Present Past, the band continues their tradition of socially conscious, spiritually charged music while pushing their sonic boundaries further. The album positions Irreversible Entanglements not just as innovators in contemporary jazz, but as cultural messengers channeling history, resistance, and hope into sound.
To celebrate the release, the band will embark on a series of live performances across North America and Europe, including shows in New York, Philadelphia, Turin, Cagliari, Innsbruck, Antwerp, and Liège.
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