Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd - Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project

'Holding It Down: The Veterans Dreams Project' is an astonishing album to emerge from the longtime collaboration of Grammy-nominated pianist/composer Vijay Iyer and poet/performer/librettist/emcee Mike Ladd. Three years in the making, the work focuses on veterans of colour from the last decade's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'Holding It Down' is a thought-provoking, sometimes frightening, and ultimately exhilarating combination of music, poetry and song, created from the actual dreams of young veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The album continues in the ground breaking, politically searing, stylistically omnivorous fashion of their previous works (the award-winning 'In What Language?' (Pi 2004) and 'Still Life with Commentator' (2007).