Oberlin

Composer/pianist Vijay Iyer and spoken-word poet Mike Ladd have made another stirring and provocative cultural statement with the recent release of Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project on Pi Recordings. The new album is the result of a three-year collaboration by Iyer and Ladd with a group of veterans of color from recent U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It completes a trilogy of works the pair have produced that uses music and poetry to examine the experience of being a person of color in the US and in the world in the post-9/11 era, including In What Language (2003) and Still Life with Commentator (2006). Holding It Down gives a voice to these veterans, through depictions of their dreams, to illuminate the psychic burden they bear for what they do on the battlefield, acting in our names. The result is a chillingly compelling narrative of the ravages of war on those who serve, that every ordinary citizen needs to hear and ponder.

In his prior projects with Iyer, Ladd fashioned the full set of lyrics on his own. In Holding It Down he is ably assisted by former Marine Maurice Decaul and former Air Force drone operator Lynn Hill, both of whom turned to poetry in their post-service quests for peace and healing. Nine of the seventeen tracks on the CD are riveting first-person accounts of dreams exploding with frontline imagery that haunt Hill and Decaul. For the remaining tracks, Ladd has fashioned poetry out of dreams told to him by eight other veterans from around the country. Ladd, Decaul, and Hill recite most of the poetry on the CD, assisted by Guillermo Brown.

Iyer, who is possessed of a voracious and wide-ranging artistic appetite, has crafted hazy, rhythmic musical dreamscapes that, when combined with his collaborators' poetry, are cinematic in scope. He composed all of the music save the last track, "Mess Hall," which was written by the multi-faceted artist Pamela Z. She also recites (and drones) Decaul's text for "Mess Hall" and contributes to six other tracks.

The other musicians who help Iyer (on piano and electronics) achieve this hypnotic atmosphere are Liberty Elman on now-screaming, now-sobbing guitar, Okkyung Lee with blurry smears of cello, and Kassa Overall providing the raw and rhythmic drive on trap-set drums.

Where Ladd brings a familiar hip-hop rhythm and cadence to his recitations, Hill and Decaul bring a less-studied, open-wound immediacy to theirs. In "Capacity," Iyer's slippery piano intro is joined by a persistent six-note synthesizer pulse and Overall's drums. "I have a capacity for war," Hill tells us. "I have a capacity for insanity / for anger / for lies."

We have no doubts. "On Patrol" begins with the sounds of distant bells which yield to shimmering electronics and ticking, then clashing cymbals. Decaul takes us along on his mission. Death lurks around every turn: "RATTLE...CRACKLE...RAT A TAT...KABOOM...SWISH...TING...PLINK...THUD." We can't help but feel relief that this is not our dream, visiting us each night. A mesmerizing musical achievement, Holding It Down is also an important socio-political document. It demands, and deserves, to be heard.

Holding it Down: the Veterans' Dreams Project

Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd

Pi Recordings, Catalog #Pi49, Released September 2013

Track Listing

1. Here (Mike, Cambridge)
2. Derelict Poetry (Maurice, Brooklyn)
3. Capacity (Lynn, Bronx)
4. Walking with the Duppy (Rashan, Queens)
5. There is a Man Slouching in the Stairway (Maurice, Brooklyn)
6. My Fire (Brad, Chester, NC)
7. On Patrol (Maurice, Brooklyn)
8. Dream of an Ex-Ranger (William, Newton, MA)
9. Name (Lynn, Bronx)
10. Costume (Mike, Cambridge)
11. Tormented Star of Morning (Maurice, Brooklyn)
12. Patton (Calvin, Massapequa, NY)
13. Shush (Maurice, Brooklyn)
14. REM Killer (Kirk, Lexington, KY)
15. Requiem for an Insomniac (Maurice, Brooklyn)
16. Dreams in Color (Lynn, Bronx)
17. Mess Hall (Merrin, San Diego)