Review: Irreversible Entanglements’ ‘Open the Gates’

“I’m so close,” poet Camae Ayewa, a/k/a Moor Mother, intones on “Lágrimas del Mar” off of Irreversible Entanglements’ Open the Gates (International Anthem/Don Giovanni, 2021). The hope in her voice is so palpable you can almost see her eyes widen with expectation. “I’m so close to the good news, the silver and gold, the daily bread.”

A fanfare of multiple overdubbed horns proclaims the arrival of the good news immediately with the opening title cut, a celebratory declaration that “[i]t’s energy time!” With its exultant beat and echoes of street parades, it’s one of the most joyous things you will hear in this year of darkness.

Since releasing its self-titled debut in 2017, Irreversible Entanglements has served as prophet, stern jurist, and avenging angel in a society that the band portrays as eating itself alive. Over forthright, nearly free-jazz instrumentals, Ayewa, the band’s most notable and compelling voice, hurled flamethrower indictments that landed with the eternal fury of wrathful gods. Her words leave marks.

So, it is fair to ask: has Irreversible Entanglements gone soft?

The answer – blessedly, because we need Ayewa’s fierce witness – is no. Still, Open the Gates,  the third release by the Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC collective, admits a measure of optimism, a fountain of cool water, to the band’s well-known and well-earned fire.

On “Water Meditation,” the political becomes the personal. A reverent Ayewa beseeches “[w]ater me. If you know a woman, then you know a thing about the water. Water me. Water me, love, the revolution. Baptism by water, by desire” over quiet bells and Aquiles Navarro’s declamatory trumpet. An eye-popping Luke Stewart bass solo ushers in a more forceful section that seems, at first, to be a praise song to Yemayá, the Yoruba Osha who lives in the water. But as the music grows darker and more turbulent, the object of Ayewa’s praise is revealed: Oyá, the fierce female warrior and the Osha of change. At nearly 21 minutes, “Water Meditation” is the recording’s longest cut and its center of rhetorical gravity. As the song ends, Ayewa makes what might be a statement of purpose for Open the Gates: “We are sounding. Healing. Dream chasing. And we hold on to everything. Soft landing. For peace.”

But the fires that fuel Ayewa and Irreversible Entanglements are not extinguished. They are merely banked and all the more powerful for it.

In the concluding “The Port Remembers,” Ayewa recounts “a dream, a nightmare,” as chains rattle beneath her, and Stewart’s arco bass moans a dirge. A spirit surveys the tragic landmarks of bondage – Gorée Island, the sugar plantations, the docks – and shows receipts from Charles II (‘the devil”), the Heywood Brothers, and more. Roused, from their unmarked graves, the spirits arise in a stately march in seven, the biblical number of completion.” The port remembers the slow walk into the void washing away the blood Dirt hands,” Ayewa intones at the conclusion. “How come we can’t remember?”

Irreversible Entanglements remembers and insists that we remember, too. It might not be the only band that matters. But right now, no band matters more.

Open the Gates is available on International Anthem/Don Giovanni. It can be purchased through Bandcamp or on our Amazon affiliate store.

Tracklist: 1. Open the Gates; 2. Keys to Creation; 3. Lágrimas del Mar; 4. Storm Came Twice; 5. Water Meditation; 6. The Six Sounds; 7. The Port Remembers. 

Personnel: Camae Ayewa/Moor Mother (voice, synth), Aquiles Navarro (trumpet, synth), Keir Neuringer (saxophone, synth, percussion), Luke Stewart (double bass, bass guitar), Tcheser Holmes (drums, percussion).