Who Sent You?

Album review

While a lot of musicians and record labels love to imagine that they can't be defined by a genre, few can actually make that leap. Chicago's Irreversible Entanglements and their record label International Anthem are testing freedoms and what it truly means to be, as IA co-founder Scott McNiece puts it, "Boundary-defying."

In the hands of this fast-rising quintet, limitless liberty means dynamic commentary set over a brassy, rhythmically powerful skronk-and-groove accompaniment. While jazz this free often turns into chaotic, unlistenable noodling, Keir Neuringer (saxophone), Aquiles Navarro (trumpet), Luke Stewart (double bass), Tcheser Holmes (drums, congas) and Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother; voice, texts) are devoted to keeping it instrumentally muscular and surprisingly structured. The strengths here are many — MC/poet Ayewa is a compelling force, passionate and convincing. Holmes generates complex rhythms and the two horns know how to play at and with each other in coercive, burning fashion.

The title track is a furious sound storm — insistent, exploratory sax lines and brash trumpet blasts swarm over splashes of cymbals, mad drumming and spry bass lines. Ayewa's words in the same track veer from desperate ire to a fearful whisper while telling a tale of police violence: "What are you doing here in my home, in my neighborhood, who sent you?/What did they tell you?/To patrol, oversee, redeem, crucify?/Did they teach you to walk around with your finger on the trigger?" An agile bass figure reminiscent of Paul Chambers' touch powers the Latin-flavored "Bread Out of Stone." And "No Más," the most exuberant track, with its churning bass, interlaced horns, and affirmation that we are not "disconnected reflections of a source," is all funky joy. A bracing, angular match of ambition and talent. © Robert Baird / Qobuz