Irreversible Entanglements : Future Present Past
A recurring problem we see in arts criticism writ large is a tendency to privilege art of pain over art of joy. There is nothing superlative about either experience in the grand scheme; a human life, a human culture, a human history, and thus all of its art, is woven of the two like a tough and motley fabric. Tools we sharpen and practice with regarding more emotionally strenuous art can prove difficult to apply to music of joy. This is especially prominent with marginalized communities, who often have art lifted up only that describes their great pain and not the art of their celebration and life.
Future Present Past breaks from the tradition we associate not just with Irreversible Entanglements but also with their vocalist, the poet Moor Mother. It is an album of joy. The free jazz tendencies are lessened here, showing a group that is less radically free than their densest, stickiest records. Instead, there is an almost bossa nova swing to much of the music here, syncopated and danceable, set to lyrics that hum with uplifting pleasure rather than burn, as Moor Mother’s work often does, with poignant righteous rage. The only counterpoint to this notion is the open-ended gravesong middle section of “Hold On,” with its funereal wailing vocals and bone-rattle percussion. Aside from that, the track titles themselves tell you all you need to know: “Don’t Lose Your Head,” “Vibrate Higher,” “Keep Going.”
A commendable aspect of IE’s music is how they let their drummer, the superb Tcheser Holmes, room in the musical conversation. Too many records in general but jazz records in particular often have the drummer play in a muted style, afraid to let them cook out of some misguided notion that a passionate performance steals from someone else. It’s beautiful to see a record so free of ego; even the album’s collaborator, the vocalist MOTHERBOARD, is incorporated across the tracks rather than given discrete and functionally segregated standout moments. It is an album of continuous flesh, egalitarian, and quite fitting given the activist background of the entire group.
Which makes it more than somewhat painful to weigh the record as ultimately less impactful than its more incendiary predecessors. Make no mistake; this group of musicians seemingly couldn’t make a bad record if they wanted to. The Mwandishi-style keyboard dissonances across this set alone are quite delicious. This is a problem instead of a band having set too high a bar for themselves with their long-form extended and wildly fiery free jazz workouts accompanied by the only ever more fiery poeticism of their young genius vocalist. That this record in its joy is merely quite good feels instead like a step back. Perhaps it’s due in part to coming out so close to the new Jill Scott, itself a superlative and career-topping masterpiece of joy-driven jazz, soul, funk, R&B and blues that a simply quite good jazz record doesn’t have the impact it otherwise might. Ultimately, however, few artists have a catalog as consistently strong as that of Irreversible Entanglements, wherein their best sets such a high standard that it’s simply not possible for every record to leave the same impression. Of all potential problems, this is a quite nice one for Irreversible Entanglements to have.
Label: Impulse!
Year: 2026
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