"I Feel Like $100" sounds like Warp Records unfavorites Red Snapper with actual forward drive and rhythmic interest, even with its dodgy "Strawberry Fields" reference.Īmazingly, Ladd goes for delf on every cut except the Company Flow-assisted "Bladeruners," a violent fucking storm of next-level racial and sexual articulation, wide string samples criss-crossing like frozen rivers, and a plodding organic bassline. Nothing else here really touches these first three tracks, but the rest comes close- the lilting rush of the mostly instrumental "Takes More than 41," and the slow-to-start "To the Moon's Contractor," a song more summery than its interstellar title might lead you to believe. Fuck neo-soul, this is post-soul, only somehow better than something called that should ever be. "Planet 10" breaks from these jams to bust on the simple beauty of a simple song, an intricate nautilus of synth tones and deep-space vocals stretching over junkyard ambience to some kind of nappy-haired slow-grind trajectory. Unlike many poet-turned-MCs, Ladd manages to go off like a motherfucker, and it all ends with a classic scratch breakdown, cut open with more of those damned trilling strings of his. Ladd's rhymes on Afterfuture are at their most conversational, especially in breaks where he casually explains, "I'm gonna steal from the foreign merchant./ For the cinnamon peeler's wife./ Like I was bedding down with Isis."Īs the buzzing keyboard stabs fade out, "Airwave Hysteria" begins, and the rest is swapped for rising strings and faux-Hindu chants, drifting yet again into some funky, bugged-out Casio shit over which Ladd first hits his lyrical stride, MCing with self-assured flow and coming with dense rhyme content to match ("Breakbeats from Thailand down over by the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Croatia/ We've come a long way from migrating crustaceans/ Generations of relations, history of violence/ I talked along in Babylon, next time I'll try silence"). The record starts with "5000 Miles West of the Future," violently switching up from an analog keyboard assault to a sweeping ambient flow and back again, all while jazzy horn progressions seep through the background and make like Sun Ra handwriting. And even though it looks kinda like a Marlboro ad, it's still a dope cover.
It's nasty New Orleans bounce with lyrics about listening to bootlegs of the Fall. Ladd's music reflects the artwork with chunky, pharmaceutical beats that sneak past dim strings. It's an awful electrical mess, superimposed onto old building walls. Look at the cover of Mike Ladd's Welcome to the Afterfuture.
0 kommentar(er)
