Ladbreaks – “Lad 2000”

Ladbreaks’ single “Lad 2000” really caught my attention. If you haven’t heard of them, they are a collective based out of London that started when guitarist Yoshida Takumi and bassist Saito Ryota met at a local jam session. After heading to Japan, they brought in drummer Oi Kazuya and keyboardist Yoshio Nikaho. They have a whole approach built around recording everything in completely unrehearsed, one-shot sessions.

That raw energy is exactly what you get here. It sounds like the kind of live music you stumble into while traveling, or a song playing during a fictional road-trip movie. You can hear that the musicians are fully locked in, relying on pure talent and trusting each other without planning things out beforehand. It follows up on the work they put into their May 2022 album “Travel,” which featured songs they spent a year re-arranging. This single is just pure, boundary-free music made without any pretense. It is a great reminder of why they started pushing so hard in 2021 to keep their skills sharp and get some creative restlessness out during the pandemic, eventually moving into Instagram live streams and commercial work.

I highly recommend giving this one a listen. Go follow Ladbreaks on social media so you can see what else they put out this year.