Mike Ladd – Negrophilia

From the get-go this is probably the best album yet from both the Thirsty Ear label and from Mike Ladd. A much bigger success than both of Matthew Shipp’s duo album’s with Antipop and El-P. On the back of a full interview and page long review in The Wire this eleven track album does not dissapoint, in fact it goes way beyond my expectations and I’m already a big fan of the majority of the Blue Series. Mike Ladd’s intelligent poet lyrics feature on around half the tracks alongside Roy Campbell’s gorgeous trumpet, Andrew Lamb’s horns, Vijay Iyers keys, Bruce Grant’s tape loops and Guillermo E. Browns percussion instruments. Mike also plays the Teo Marcero role, editing, splicing and chopping up the music, keeping it real and vital. Deep righteous jazz to exotic ambience with not one second wasted