Mike Ladd - "Nostalgialator"

Mike Ladd - Trouble Shot (!K7 2004; re-released Def Jux 2008)

Mike Ladd - Nostalgialator / Def Jux

This has been out for over three years, so fresh assessment of Mike Ladd's Nostalgialator is impossible. That said, the ubiquity of blogs was a lot less prevalent in 2004 than it is now, so perhaps this good word will put out the word that much faster. Mike Ladd. This story starts with Mike Ladd.

Ladd was not initially a musician, choosing instead the poetry route which in fact won him the Nuyorican Poets Café Slam and got him published for 1996's intriguing racial analysis "In Defense of Mumia." The turn to music was never really complete - in between releasing albums such as Easy Listening 4 Armageddon and Father Divine under his own name and a few others under side projects like The Infesticons and Majesticons, respectively - Ladd was able to find time to write for Bostonia and Long Shot Review. Needless to say, the man has a colorful history that includes moving from Boston to Paris, where he currently lives.

The City of Light is an appropriate place to begin a re-evaluation of Nostalgialator three years on from its European debut and near-release in the US. So much has happened to music in the intervening years, but the big story in the last year at least has been Paris and the collective of DJs/artists/hangers-on that have made dancing not just fun but fashionable again. "We Are Your Friends" came out in 2004, but who's to say Xavier and Gaspard didn't take note of the giant, in-your-face electro-rock-hop this album is doused in? Daft Punk is not necessarily the alpha and the omega.

"Dire Straits Plays Nuremberg" is a fine example. The distorted synths add music to the heavily echoed recording and massive applause for what one can only assume is Dire Straits. It functions as an amped-up opener to get you ready for what's to come. That is to say, anything and everything, and you should be prepared. "Trouble Shot" drives the point home. Asteroid lasers and 70s funk brass turn up the heat for a busy afro rocker that turns into a Italo-disco war rant out of nowhere. Mixing politics and the solar system, Ladd destroys the boundaries of space and then time when we fly back to the main hook.

This is the delicate balance that Ladd conducts throughout the album. Between the full-on adrenaline rush of dirty synthesizers and brass bands and the lilting electro of decades never really past. 60s funk and soul, 70s disco and dance, 80s synths in overdrive, 90s sampling and sourcing, eternal themes, and there at the center of it all is Ladd, trying to hold it together. "Wild Out Day" is a great example of how it nearly blows apart halfway through with its break-neck pace. And then, just when it seems like it can't get itself under control, just at that point where a listener decides that there's no point in keeping up...

Then Nostalgialator takes its breather. Sorely needed, the spoken-word roots return for "How Electricity Really Works." This track is an anomaly, a dreamy, Mario-underwater ballad that floats on the illuminated synths and subtle brass touches. Yeah, Subtle. They were probably paying attention to this, too. Where was everyone else?

"Off to Mars?" keeps things slower, with no rush to return to the manic first half. The backside of the album keeps itself together at a much more sedate pace (with the exception of "Afrotastic") and cements Nostalgialator as an album very much running the gamut of emotion and expression. This is the essence of Mike Ladd. By using his numerous artistic potions to concoct something potent, Ladd caught the shape of Paris to come. By extension, he caught the musical landscape just as it was beginning another upheaval. It's too bad I wasn't paying as much attention to !K7 in 2004 as I am now, because I would've been all over this even more than I am now. But maybe this is for the best. Maybe Ladd christened it Nostalgialator for a reason: We can look back just as we look forward, commemorating and defiling as we go. Young and invincible and full of it. Nostalgialator is.