MVP of the Year #1: Moor Mother
We take a look at 3 releases from one of the most profound and most stark artists of the year, Moor Mother.
Camae Ayewa, also known as Moor Mother, is a Philadelphian monster. A poet, a rapper, a sound designer, an activist, and more, she’s one of the most prolific artists we have today, and one of the most multifaceted ones, even if her work relies on very similar ideologies. She stands for black liberation through her art, abstract phrases turned into powerful mantras, always backed up by musicians as talented as her. She surrounds herself well, her presence on the microphone is stunning and overwhelming, and her musical variety is one to behold. Out of the 8 (!) projects she’s released thus far this year, I’ve chosen her 3 best works to talk about as the year winds down, because just talking about 1 wouldn’t be giving her enough credit. All projects under different names, but all of them worthy of your time.
Irreversible Entanglements - Who Sent You?
Free jazz group founded in 2015. They released their self-titled debut in 2017, and recorded the entirety of this album March 1st, 2019.
Moor Mother’s jazz poetry project, and one that strikes like lightning. Not a single member off balance, as they wrap themselves around an anxious, eerie mist of anger and disaffection with the rest of the world, having being devoured and spit back. Who Sent You? seeks to bring back those who have been forgotten in the building of the new America, as well as turn its back on the infiltrators, the destroyers, the erasers, the ones who crush beliefs and ideas built by ancestors and generations before them. Racial injustice is a rampant issue on Moor Mother’s discography, and this album creaks, shakes, and twists at the mere sights of things going wrong. She doesn’t stand dumbfounded, she stares deep into that abyss, as the free jazz (importance of the notion of free jazz) builds that hurricane made of unrest. “At what point do we stand up?”. The call to action is clear and steady.
Repeated listens will show that the music shows more restraint than it first looks like. The musicians are aware not to explode all at once, taking in all the nuances of the poetry on display. They take things relatively easy on the opener “The Code Noir / Amena”, led by a groove worthy of testing your patience courtesy of double bass player Luke Stewart, as respective trumpet and sax player Aquiles Navarro and Keir Neuringer seem to be in some kind of synchrony - although, of course, that’s when the differences get to be showcased under their best light. They can be that band playing in that lounge club filled with intellectuals, but they’ll take advantage of that position to challenge their beliefs, break away with the normativity and the homogeneity, showcase the violent systems they form part of. Similarly, a song like “No Más” can keep that steady pace aided by wonderful drummer Tcheser Holmes, this time with more speed, as if the music was breaking away from its origins to spread itself around the listener (again, those trumpet/sax differences, they’re more telling than they should be). Maybe then, they can reach out to those beyond that bar, crawl into the streets and show the world all the racial inequalities that are built deep into the sheer notion of American society. “No más. No more.” The time to love themselves and their community can begin soon.
But they don’t forget about chaos - and at times, this can be raucous, burning in deep red as the music reaches claws-deep into that force that’s always behind marginalized black communities, like the centerpiece “Who Sent You - Ritual” displays. A thorough interrogation of a policeman being somewhere he shouldn’t be, the beating pulps into the anxiety unthought of by everyone else - Moor Mother’s performance is fearful and afraid, but from that fear comes unrepentant passion, a quest for answers generations behind her have asked for for centuries. The music dies down, she lets out one basic, simple question, “...What are you doing here?”, with the hurt voice of millions. But that’s not enough! Rising above, building everything back up, “Here comes the end”, spreading out a Kraken boiled into a bloody fist, hitting over and over again. She knows they’re not like them, they don’t run away from the end. Those who do them wrong may run into the dark, but she knows: they are the dark.
The pope must be drunk, indeed. Who does he think he is? Then again, who do Irreversible Entanglements think they are? They’re down there, as he’s blowing kisses at them, waving goodbye, yet he always comes back. Well, so do they. Their fury doesn’t go unnoticed, their music pushes and punches high and aims even higher - if they all must be mad, they’re going to be even madder. They contort themselves, bringing back demons from the ground to attack those with power and the willingness to do absolutely nothing - their “Blues Ideology” becomes one with their music. They don’t want their power, they want their stakes, their importance, their ability to do good that they never use. But right now, they don’t intend to do good either for or by them. What Moor Mother and her incredible ensemble have learned is that rhythm is power, and oh mighty, do they have it. The bar has been destroyed, now they play for the streets, and just like the streets, they’re lurking, looking for something to hold on to. Whether that be tradition or something new, it’s all there for them to grab. They just have to learn to grab it. The object of the century, they may just find it.
Moor Jewelry - True Opera
Post-punk/no wave collaboration with punk act Mental Jewelry.
A dark night situated in a cave that might be in the middle of a desert. Punching walls, never getting through to them, breaking your hand, and then stomping on whatever rocks are left. All the noise is drowned out, and there’s no one there to hear it - at some point, you don’t even get to hear yourself. It’s just blank noise that doesn’t even get to irritate so much as to be there and take up space, and there isn’t much of it. These are dry colors, splashings of rock instruments that seem to go against what they need to play. The music spins circles around itself to find absolutely nothing - if the final track seems to imply something, it’s that this is the way it’s always been, and always will be. Bleak ideas, bleak systems that led them there, so brought down it’s easier to crawl and be consumed by the emptiness.
Music appropriate for a mosh pit where everyone is too agitated and helpless to actually mosh. The opening track contains one of the most powerful opening lines of the year. “In the midnight hour, I erase these cowards.” As the song goes, as the music goes on, said cowards seem to be themselves too, as the mantras repeat themselves and the words become more abstract and yet more direct at the same time. “There’s a gun in your mouth, true opera.” Songs like “Judgement” or “No Hope” sludge along, knowing no one will be there to pick them up, if anything they’ll be kicked down yet again. It’s an endless cycle of insisting on something better and then being brought down. Moor Mother sings with her head on the ground, always stepping away from the mic, unable to listen to what those systems of make-believe have to say because she knows what the deal is. The most alarming song on the album, one of the longest ones in this very short listen, “Working”, is one of declaration, one of fear, where everything they’ve attempted has reached its status of perfection, and no hope seems to remain, only a shadow of it. They have screamed, shouted, fucked, and killed, for marginalized groups to stay underneath, and the music rips itself apart in an attempt to sabotage itself. There’s a way to change reality, but it has to come from somewhere else.
It’s bleak, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t put up a fight at all. “Look Alive” takes back a question Moor Mother previously asked-”At what point do we stand up?”-and gives a brand new context: “At what point do we stand up for trans youth?” Now, it’s tangible, something to protect, something to palpably see and support, and the track rises like few songs on the album do. This may just be the point of no return Moor Mother keeps talking about, and it sounds like it. To look alive is to be aware and to not put their hands down, even as they’re being dragged around. The future can have been Photoshopped and sterilized, but the guitars still roar, even as they stand to die. True Opera kicks and screams to and for something else, “Fuck you!” in front of their face. It’s put itself through the mood, and it may just explode like a bomb in the process, but that should be no reason for concern. After all, it’s doing what it’s meant to do. This is constructing something to look forward to from the inside, so that others can go and push those beliefs on the outside on their own. If that were to be its goal, well, it’s working indeed.
Moor Mother - Circuit City
Free jazz album, featuring the same ensemble found on Irreversible Entanglements.
Act 1 - Working Machine: Buildings crashing in slow motion; smoke, rage, fire, indifference, chaos but internalized, normalized, non-criticized. The crashing goes beyond and it extends onto the alarms of the unknown, the depraved, and a voice? Is that a… voice? So much trauma, so much trauma, coming from the rumble and the ether. Generational trauma set into alarms that never stop, alien noises, how can everything be so still when everything else is on fire? Not for long? It’s got to stop, it’s got to break, something’s got to break, if not, why are we ! Going into the abyss, the deep, dark void that comes without getting proper retribution, understanding, respect, basic human rights! Instead you only get the cacophony of gentrification and marginalization, meritocracy is on the rise, meritocracy is on the rights, high noises, low voices, break the circle, break the cycle, but you can’t! A spiral turns into another spiral, turns into an onion, turns into commodification. Work for a machine that’s so big you can’t see it, it’s canned. It’s broken and left behind, people on their knees begging for 4 walls of decay. Crashes into the ground, into the smoke that doesn’t stop being inhaled by those poor believers. So much left behind, so much force behind, inhale again, go in again, is it working? Not for them, it’s not. Stomp your feet into those walls and watch them turn into stones, so the energy of your body has to be suited anywhere else. This is not rock bottom yet, not if you can still see those edges, if you can still chant those sad, endless mantras.
Act 2 - Circuit Break: You awake yet? Fuck you, take what you got. Back to the grind, back to the house, the nothingness. Yet, there is one out there, still chanting along, screaming out so someone may hear her. But you can’t stop, you oughta rush if you wanna make it anywhere, but that voice chases after you. Before you even know it, it’s turned into a race - can words defeat blood? Can words defeat the aching and the fucking and the rushing? Will it allow you to see beyond and realize those machines, those holographs? Or will you back into that cave of darkness, never-ending darkness? You can’t destroy yourself just yet, you still need to be that tool, but oooohhhhh you next. You dream of being something else, a martyr that sacrifices itself for the greater good (your mother), but what if the strange alley gets to you before that? Think of what’s out there, that dark alley will get it and sell it to you before you can even dream again. Rushing through the city will get you where you’re going, but where you’re going is nowhere. Drink it again, dream of the emancipation, dream of the liberation, before something breaks. Will it be now? Will it be later? Has it already happened? Can all this still be a dream you can’t wake up from before you annihilate yourself? Squiggly lines take over, there’s gotta be a mistake, yet you’re still here, and those lines get whiter, as everything grows darker, beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond, yet it’s all canned. It’s all tiny, little, a space between what you hear and what you are that is minimal, so minimal you barely fit in it. When will that space grow larger? That straw of misery, take from it again, break once again, the city is the city is the city is a red horse with its master bleeding its eyes out, the robber is gone, the power is now an abstract force that you can’t undo finish.
Act 3 - Time of No Time: Get set once again! Is that a new voice? It’s certainly different. You’re more willing to listen. Home is long gone now, so you better watch out. Check your surroundings, see a specter of what things once were. “We will return to a time with no time”. Those who live under the lowest conditions being removed of what little they have, as their pride is the one thing left for them to hold on to. How could they not rise up? Yet this isn’t that, this is something different, it’s a reflection on the forgotten and the lost. A time with no time, you say? Let’s see how that pans out, how that work gets done. There’s certainly more consideration this time around, you don’t get to explode when others had to work until their time of death. That’s a privilege not for you. Think of that which was lost, until the oh here we are again. Control and violence are not as different as you might think they are. The city dreams of those gone, as so to not forget. If everything goes according to plan, those names they speak about might take over the entire city. The rumble looks towards something else now. Wonder what that is.
Act 4 - No More Wires: How did you survive? Let’s ponder upon that question, let’s sleep on it, let’s sit on it, except wait… we aren’t standing, nor sitting, we’re breaking apart in a time that goes to waste, could it be worse? Could it be that the circuits are now gone, that the dark alleys can be enlightened at some point? The breaking apart of those systems leads to nothing? No! Leads to everything. Those voices have stood up, the machine can be overtaken, the recuperation of what was lost can begin, in the middle of the building crashing down. The building is breaking something else down, ideals of white power and white dominance that can be broken. It’s an escape, it’s gratitude for the fight and the desire being gained back, how can that not be so beautiful? Everything’s being owned again, the memory and the money and the genius and the infinite circles (spirals) can be taken back. The future is being grabbed by the handles, the lines are being dominated and turned into a whip being smashed into the floor until it disappears from everyone’s sight. Ugliness and beauty mean the same, because it’s theirs, there’s no ‘you’ anymore, this is collective, this is the fight of millions as it passes through beyond human systems, and space, and time, for those too are human after all, and they have realized that. At the breaking point, she said - this is the breaking point! The door breaks, the leashes are off, the leader falls back into the crowd as the masses tear everything down, not for restitution, but for the power of black art, the power of jazz. Free jazz is rage, this is rage, and it unfolds and lets the people do the rest. The spark has been ignited, now it’s time to let said people do the rest. No need to cry, the wires are gone… for now. How can there be no system where the system has been the one they’ve lived on their entire lives? How easy is it to truly break free? If they can’t do that, they might as well break apart, make use of that privilege so many others didn’t have, and blaze out as the night is dead, the darkness dies, and the light is something too far out of their sight. No rhythm here, just the assumption of freedom owned to them by centuries of oppression. This future can exist, always if rage is involved, and not stepped aside. As we step back into ourselves and focus on the surroundings, there’s no longer any smoke, any rumble. Just people out there having their euphoric moment of glory before they come back, and the battle and the war continue on. Look above, that machine is not out of sight.