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Aesop Rock & Blockhead | Garbology

Rhymesayers

Aesop Rock & Blockhead | Garbology

£30.00

RSE336LP

12/11/21

Gatefold recyled coloured double vinyl

Includes download code

When Aesop Rock debuted in the late 90s with Music For Earthworms and Appleseed, Blockhead was also a part of the process, not only as a producer, but also helping coordinate sales of the CDRs to hungry Hip Hop fans. Blockhead and Aesop continued to collaborate, creating an impressive list of songs along the way, including two of Aesop’s most popular songs to date; “Daylight” and “None Shall Pass”. In recent years, Blockhead has contributed production, as well as remixes, to many of Aesop’s solo releases and group projects, and Aesop has made a handful of guest features on Blockhead’s solo projects, but in all that time, Aesop and Block have never done a full album together, until now!

Garbology came together over the course of the pandemic, as well as in the midst of Aesop processing the loss of a close friend in January of 2020, resulting in a period of time of feeling uncreative. Looking back on that time that feels both like yesterday and forever-ago, Aesop recalls, “The world got real weird during those months. I knew at some point I had to get back to making something. Make a beat. Draw a picture. Write. Just go. But the idea of making a beat felt like math homework, and drawing is just so hard. Writing is hard too, but at some point I had to pick one.” With writing as the chosen path, Aesop hit up Blockhead to send over some beats. At the beginning there wasn’t a plan for an album, or any particular plan beyond creating some songs. However, it wasn’t long before on song became a few, and then a handful, until finally an album was born.

Garbology encapsulates the soundtrack of current times, capturing a snapshot of Aes and Block expressing a means of entertaining themselves in the midst of less social interactions than usual, “anchored on a goulash of cabin fever, fear, anger and boredom”, as Aesop describes it.

As for the album title, Aesop explains, “Garbology is defined as the study of the material discarded by a society to learn what it reveals about social or cultural patterns. I find a lot of parallels between that and the idea of picking up the pieces after a loss or period of intense unrest, and seeing what’s really there. It’s information that speaks to who I am, who we are, and how we move forward. Furthermore - the idea of digging through old, often neglected music from another time with an ear tuned for taking in that data in a different way than your average listener would is exactly what Tony does. Go through the information and see what you find.”

“As always, listening to Aesop is a respite from troubled times.” - AV CLUB

“He has very much that grounding of a true MC who has technical precision and sharpness. He’s rhythmic and has presence and feeling on the mic, but he’s also very much in the tradition of the beat poets... Allen Ginsburg, Bob Kaufman. Aesop Rock really reminds me of that kind of class of writers but in a hip hop and an emceeing context… There are definitely moments that feel like he’s walking us through a narrative, but a lot of it really is like a puzzle of the imagination that he’s putting together here.” - NPR

“Aesop Rock’s staying power isn’t talked about enough—this is the fourth decade he’s released an album in, and inspiration continues to flow unabated through his microphone.” - PASTE

“With his latest project, Spirit World Field Guide, the rapper sets his sights even more inward than is typical for him, constructing a dense conceptual world he’s more than happy to guide us through.” - FLOOD

“[Spirit World Field Guide] is one of the greatest albums of 2020. Easily.” - GHETTOBLASTER


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