Aesop Rock Albums (5)
What The Critics Say
Aesop Rock has been impressing the backpacker crowd with his intricate lyrics and dark, dirty, melodic production ever since he self-released Music for Earthworms back in 1997, helping to define the East Coast underground scene and validate the presence of white rappers. And even though he moved to San Francisco in 2005, prompting some outcry from New York purists, all thoughts of bright, funky West Coast beats and lyrics can be put to rest, because None Shall Pass, the album being heralded as the true follow-up to the seminal Labor Days, is as powerful as anything the MC has ever created. Once again Blockhead takes responsibility for most of the production here, though he's helped out both by Rock himself (who showed off his skills, as well as those of his guitar-playing wife, on the Nike/iTunes-commissioned Original Run series back in February 2007) and Def Jux labelhead and near-legend El-P, who also adds vocals to "39 Thieves," one of the few tracks on the record that has a fairly comprehensible message ("Money is cool, I'm only human/But they use it as a tool to make the workers feel excluded/Like the shinier the jewel the more exclusive the troop is/Bullets don't take bribes, stupid, they shoot shit," he rhymes in the breakdown). Because despite, or perhaps more accurately, due to, Aesop Rock's verbal talent and his ability to combine complicated internal rhyme with innovative phrasing and metaphors, a lot of his couplets, and even entire stories, are fairly cryptic. "None Shall Pass," with its great keyboard sample and helium-voiced chorus, is vaguely about society having to pay for its sins, the fantastic "The Harbor Is Yours" tells the tale of a "pirate," and features some great vocal stuttering ("And you should tell them where you situate the gold/That is unless you'd like a vacation with Davy J-J-J-Jones"), and "Bring Back Pluto" is more than an appeal to astronomers, though to who else it applies to is a little unclear. This doesn't mean that there are a lot of empty phrases here -- Aesop Rock is clearly a careful, deliberate writer -- but he can tend toward the experimental school of rhyme, which can be a little alienating. Still, his cadence, sharp and accentuated, and his bitonal flow are strangely warm and inviting, and it's hard not to get sucked into at least trying to understand what he's saying, trying to make sense of it all. Plus, the talent, both of Rock and his guests (which, besides El-P, also include Ron Sonic, John Darnielle from the Mountain Goats, Breezly Brewin', and Cage) is impressive, and makes None Shall Pass an album that deserves a lot of attention, both inside and outside the hip-hop world. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide
'All Day: Nike + Original Run'
Release Date 2/13/2007
Tracks 1
Label Nike Sport Music
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Commissioned by Nike for part of their Original Run series, MC/producer Aesop Rock lays off his typically verbose rhymes and focuses on the beat during his 45-minute, one-track album (those being part of the requirements, along with certain bpms), entitled All Day: Nike + Original Run. An iTunes-only release, the record is meant to act as accompaniment to a workout, and for the most part, fulfills that objective well. The rapper's lines, when he does spit them, are often to hard to decipher, behaving more as driving, rhythmic components rather than conveyers of insight or reflection. Instead, it's the production, which is quite excellent, that pushes the music forward, the kind of thing that revisits itself without seeming repetitive, interesting and connected but not unapproachable. It's a step in a different direction for Aesop Rock, who's generally known for his complicated stories and fancy wordplay, and shows he really paid a lot of attention to the task at hand. It also shows that he's as talented a producer as he is a rapper, because All Day is interesting enough to function as a piece not to run to, to just listen to instead. Scratches and heavy bass drum mix with a live guitar playing deliberate, yet not overly heavy, lines, the MC's voice comes in, keyboards move from somber to near-new wave, but everything is meant to be there, everything makes sense, phrases exit only to enter in sometime else. All Day may not be the record for a casual fan of Aesop Rock, or for someone who only wants to hear his rhymes, but it's an accomplishment in mood-setting, darkly urban production, and certainly worth it for that. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide
'Bazooka Tooth'
Release Date 9/23/2003
Tracks 27
Label Definitive Jux
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Few labels in the rap underground boast the profile of Definitive Jux, and few rappers on Def Jux match the talents of Aesop Rock. So his second record for the label came with great expectations, engendered by the success of 2001's Labor Days, which catapulted him into the first rank of hip-hop voices. As far as the expectations go, Bazooka Tooth delivers on most of its promise. The beats are dense and the bass-lines dark, like street-level rap is supposed to be, with a jumble of murky samples and angled effects coming from every direction. And Ace Rock's lurching, nasally flow and obscurist rhymes may not carry every lyric across, but do allow listeners to marvel at the few legible lines. With most of the productions coming from Aesop himself (along with Def Jux mainstay Nasa), Bazooka Tooth lacks the catchy, sample-driven flavor of Labor Days, but does set a standard for basement-level beats, with some of the best hashed-and-screwed productions heard on Def Jux since the Cannibal Ox masterpiece The Cold Vein. Bronx bombers Camp Lo stop by for an old-school horrorcore jam named "Limelighters," Def Jux head El-P guests on a no-biters track called "We're Famous," and Mr. Lif appears on the highlight, the tag-team rhyme manifesto "11:35." The album does, however, reveal a few problems endemic to independent rap in general as well as the Def Jux label and Aesop Rock specifically: to get and keep the respect of the underground, an artist is forced to push his sound farther, but it soon reveals a trap -- no production can be too difficult, no variation in flow too off-kilter, no topics or rhymes too bizarre in order to keep heads nodding. Bazooka Tooth simply pushes too far. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After finding an eager online audience for his dense soundscapes and even more complex rhymes, New York MC Aesop Rock released his most potent combination of words and music on his Def Jux debut. Crammed with references to history and mythology, as well as the usual pop-culture name checks, Aesop's lyrics remain unusually verbose and intelligent here, but he's also able to spin them into compelling stories. The best example is the bittersweet, follow-your-dreams saga of "No Regrets," which chronicles a woman's sacrifices for art from childhood to old age. Besides the wealth of detail, the song doesn't sugarcoat the loneliness of its subject, even as it shows her at ease with her choices. And on "9-5ers Anthem," Aesop -- who still works a day job himself -- allays any concerns about him being a hip-hop elitist, offering a shout out to the blue-collar masses. There are still instances where he gives his listeners simply too much information to process for a pop song ("The Tugboat Complex, Pt. 3"), but, overall, he does his best job yet at balancing smarts and accessibility. Of course, with such a focus on lyrics, it's easy to ignore the beats behind them -- but while the sampled backing is sometimes on the plain side, Labor Days contains some inventive bites from classical music, and more than a few tunes will grow on you, if given the chance. ~ Dan LeRoy, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Words to describe this work would be: surprising, analytical, darkness, mystery, lyricism, and jealous. Jealous because it's likely that every person who has ever tried to rap would wish he could rhyme like this guy, and every poet would wish to dream with such imagery. If you're into bootyshakin' and dancing, and that's the reason you listen to hip-hop, do not buy this album. But if you like hip-hop for rhymes that make you think, this guy just can't be slept on. For example, "6B Panorama" discusses the view from his NYC apartment and starts like this: "I was sitting on my fire escape and I saaaaaaw...Sturdy bridges, decorated with dirty pigeons, a vagabond beggin' for three pennies and a princess, a junky tourniquet surgeon urgin' the needle in, a batty senior citizen flashin' that awful teethless grin." Artists such as Aesop Rock paint intricate abstract pictures with their music, and it's simply too much information to handle in a single sitting. This album is so complex that it may never be fully comprehended by the listener, but you may find yourself walking along listening one day and finally figure out one of the metaphors -- a great feeling. This is one of a few albums definitely worth any import pricing. One more quote: "(I see) a challenge, a chance to add real colors to my favorite palette, raise my mighty mallet towards the gods and swing my talents!" ~ Brad Mills, All Music Guide
