Aesop Rock has announced a headline tour of Australia and New Zealand. He’ll be touching down in Auckland this September, followed by Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. This marks Aes’ first Australian visit since 2011, and will be in support of his brilliant 2016 album The Impossible Kid.
Joining Aesop on tour will be partner-in-crime Rob Sonic, with whom he’s toured extensively both as a support act and as duo Hail Mary Mallon (fingers crossed for an on-stage collaboration). Resident mixmaster DJ Zone will also be in tow.
Read: Aesop Rock, The Impossible Kid: album review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwoyo0Rt4Bw
After releasing The Impossible Kid last May, Aesop also released his second collaborative EP with Stones Throw rapper Homeboy Sandman, Lice 2. Since then he’s been surprisingly prolific in terms of production work, soundtracks and visuals. He’s also just shared the new video for Get Out Of The Car, a touching tribute to the late Camu Tao, who passed away nine years ago last week.
Pre-sale tickets will be available from Friday June 2 at 9am local time, with general sales from Monday June 5, also at 9am local time – more details here.
Dates can be found below.
Aesop Rock 2017 Australia & New Zealand Tour Dates
With Rob Sonic and DJ Zone
Thursday September 21: Kings Arms, Auckland
Saturday September 23: Amplifier, Perth
Wednesday September 27: The Gov, Adelaide
Thursday September 28: Woolly Mammoth, Brisbane
Friday September 29: Manning Bar, Sydney
Saturday September 30: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Read: Search aesop rock track by Aesop Rock Breaks Down Each Track On The Impossible Kid
Earlier this year Aesop Rock delivered The Impossible Kid. It is one of, if not his best album to date, the most lyrically accessible and therefore confronting, and by far the most commercially successful record of his entire career.
The release has come with a myriad visual accompaniments, from video clips to Rings, Blood Sandwich, Kirby and Dorks, a fully animated miniseries and an entire animated video which recreates The Shining.
A new video is now upon us, for Shrunk, which deals with his experiences with mental health and therapy. The video was directed by frequent collaborator Rob Shaw. It begins with Aes walking in an arcade parlour (catch the Rob Sonic cameo?). He sits down and a game begins to run through his insurance details and health records, before taking him through the typical process of a therapy session. Of course, as he progresses and improves, the video game demands more money to begin the next level.
This is a really clever reimagining of his relationship with therapy and the red tape that surrounds it.
Every video he’s released for the album has been incredible; amazingly multi-layered, cryptic, fun, and absolutely riveting to watch, and this might just be the smartest one yet.
Watch:
https://youtu.be/Wn7RE8zycJQ
Aesop Rock has also announced a new string of US and Canada tour dates. He will once again be touring with Stones Throw rapper Homeboy Sandman, with whom he just released their second free EP Lice 2: Still Buggin’, and has also delivered a wonderful new album this year, Kindness For Weakness, as well as Hail Mary Mallon partner in crime Rob Sonic. The tour begins in November and wraps up in early 2017. While I keep crossing my fingers and toes for Australian dates, I have a feeling fans will have to travel to his home land to catch the rapper in the flesh any time soon.
Read more: Album review: Aesop Rock, The Impossible Kid
Read more: Aesop Rock breaks down every song on The Impossible Kid
Image: Youtube/Rhymesayers
Last year saw the legendary Aesop Rock team up with Stones Throw rapper Homeboy Sandman for one of 2015’s best EPs, Lice.
The pair were an incredible match with their uniquely illustrative lyrics, strong production choices and uniquely distinct tones and flows – check out our full review here for more.
The time since has been largely spent together, with Homeboy Sandman supporting Aesop Rock on an extensive US tour. Both artists have released albums in 2016; Aesop Rock delivered The Impossible Kid, one of, if not his best album to date (certainly a personal favourite after Labor Days) while Homeboy offered up the stunning Kindness For Weakness.
Now, the pair have surprise released another free EP – Lice 2: Still Buggin’. Both artists had teased a release across social media, but I wasn’t expecting a complete new EP.
Here’s a note delivered along with the EP:
People of earth –
We are proud to announce our new FREE EP – Lice 2: Still Buggin’ – available for download NOW via Rhymesayers Entertainment and Stones Throw Records. Artwork by Jeremy Fish. Limited vinyl soon.
Should the majesty of free music inspire some charity, here are a couple places we feel your money could do some good:
https://www.gofundme.com/helpkidscatchfish
https://skateistan.org
Have a fantastic day.
Best,
Lice”
Like last year’s release, the EP is five tracks long. Production has been handled by Dan Hayden, Mondee, SoberMindedMusiC and RTNC, as well as Aesop Rock himself.
The release is totally free and can be found on Stones Throw, Fifth Element (Rhymesayers’ online store), and right here too:
https://soundcloud.com/stonesthrow/sets/lice-too-still-buggin
So do yourself a favour and give your best friends some Lice.
Artwork: Jeremy Fish
Image: Stones Throw
Aesop Rock has continued to bring his latest album The Impossible Kid to life, today releasing a new video for the song Kirby. As Aes spoke about in a breakdown of each song on the album, the song Kirby is “about my cat, Kirby.” It’s a pretty great song, and this is a pretty great video.
The video features Aesop in puppet form, hanging out with a real cat whose real name is Dina. Kirby doesn’t star in it because “because Kirby wanted way too much money to appear in her own video.” Dina is a rescue cat, by the way, who has found a full time home since this video’s release (head here for more info). Puppet Aes hands out with Kirby, playing, patting, snapping photos, allows her to chew on his puppet feet and arms. The final result is unimaginably cute, especially considering the relative intensity of his recent videos for Rings, Blood Sandwich and Dorks.
The track itself details Aesop’s experiences with therapy and prescription medication. After 15 years, his therapist says to him, “I dunno, maybe get a kitten?” And thus, Kirby was brought into his life, in all his silly, innocent, feline glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_KKiQiolk
The Impossible Kid has perhaps been Aesop’s most ambitious project to date, releasing a movie to accompany the entire album. It’s also been his most well-received, having recently announced that the album saw his highest first week sales ever. Howl & Echoes likes it so much that more than one of the tracks have made it into our top songs of 2016 so far – you can check that playlist out here.
In addition to dropping new records, videos and an extensive US tour, the rapper also managed to squeeze a debut network TV appearance into his schedule, teaming up with Yo La Tengo and dropping some absolute fire on Stephen Colbert last week.
Read our review of The Impossible Kid here.
Image: Pinterest
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has likely been the most hip-hop friendly late night show in history, having featured everyone from Chance, to Kendrick, to Desiigner and many more on his program. Now, Aesop Rock has joined the ranks, performing a very special rendition of The Impossible Kid single Dorks with the wonderful Yo La Tengo as his backing band.
Tonight on #LSSC! Bill O'Reilly, @AnnaChlumsky, and @AesopRockWins. pic.twitter.com/dPBLE8k0WF
— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) June 13, 2016
Aesop is currently on tour throughout the States, and stopped in New York City to play on the late night show. It’s a remarkable feat for the rapper who, as Colbert points out, has been making music for more than two decades, but that this performance marks his very first appearance on network TV ever. Yes!
Yo La Tengo’s backing music makes for a seriously cool addition, adding chunky guitars and huge percussion, a really interesting shift away from Aesop’s self-handled production on the album.
The lighting is great, too, following the green and purple motif of the album artwork. It’s really exciting to see Aes receiving such widespread recognition like this. Considering he’s announced that The Impossible Kid has given him the highest first week sales of his entire career of his career, it seems pretty evident that more people are clocking on. Aes himself was no doubt amazed:
Well that happened
— Aesop Rock (@AesopRockWins) June 13, 2016
Watch below and read our review of The Impossible Kid here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_0y5TmY4E
Image: Youtube
Aesop Rock turns 40 years old today, and Kanye West turns 39 on Thursday. Pusha T turned 39 last month, too. They’ve all released music this year. All of it has been incredible; fresh, real, lauded by fans across the globe.
Rappers, much like pop and certainly electronic artists, are seemingly getting younger every day, with many emerging artists too young to legally drink in many countries. Vic Mensa has the year “1993” tattooed across his stomach, while many of his contemporaries like Vince Staples, Chance the Rapper, Earl Sweatshirt, Rae Sremmurd, Raury, Casey Veggies, Joey Badass, Little Simz, Bishop Nehru and plenty more are the same age or younger. Hip-hop has always been youth-focused, both from the artist and audience’s perspective – but nowadays that’s changing.
Vic Mensa, 22. Image: Clash
It’s interesting to see the direction hip-hop goes in when rappers age. Almost every rapper started out as young teens, and those emerging into mainstream fame are usually around 18-20. However, it’s the kind of music which typically has to change with age; people at 40 are different to who they are at 20. Like with anything else, if they acted or spoke in the same way, it would feel stale, desperate, and, well, old.
Today there are so many older rappers who are just as fiery, electrifying and relevant as ever. Although his latest album was admittedly sub par, at 46 years old, Jay Z‘s two very recent features on tracks from Pusha T (39) and Fat Joe (45) and Remy Ma (36) are his best in years. At 51, Dr Dre‘s Compton was a masterpiece, while Run The Jewels (both 40) have released two of the most important albums of the past decade – with a third undoubtedly on the way soon, to give a handful of examples.
It’s interesting and kind of weird that forty seems to be such a big deal for many rappers, although I suppose the same can be said for anyone, and that it’s just more noticeable in hip-hop, where your musical output is often very specifically grounded in who you are at that time in your life. Like I said, rappers can’t spend twenty or thirty years rapping about the same shit. Not only is this boring on a musical level, but it becomes disingenuous and false.
In an interview on his 40th birthday, Nas described it as “incredible.” “I was always this dude,” he responded to a question about what’s changed. “When you’re young and you on fire, there’s nothing like that feeling. Where I’m at now is a more relaxed place, but I think it’s still in me when I need to get crazy.” He went on to say that it wasn’t so much that his music is more cautious or reserved, but that, “The speed changes. You have to adjust your life, you got new things in your life, you become more of a businessman, you become a father, that matters, that weighs in.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=210&v=MnnZk86jme8
Similarly, 50 Cent addressed the big day last year in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel noted that his music had changed, to which 50 replied, “I gotta work on it. Sometimes when I write things, it’s where I’m at right now. And it’s like, ‘no, that makes sense, take that out.’ You can’t have maturity in your music.” This is an incredibly interesting, and rather wise comment coming from someone like 50 and the type of rap he’s put out.
Rappers often use age as a way to reflect, a la Jay and Push on the fantastic new single Drug Dealers Anonymous. Many others shift their focus to other areas, like film, the recording industry, labels and more, like Jay Z, Ice Cube, Puffy, Eminem and Dr Dre. Others collaborate with younger artists, not necessarily within hip-hop, in a way that keeps their output new and exciting – MF DOOM‘s 45 and he just dropped one of the coolest verses this year on the new Avalanches track, while Raekwon (46) fits perfectly on Flume‘s new album, more than twice the age of the other two rappers featured, Mensa and Staples, both 22.
But what about the rappers who have found themselves in a renaissance at that age? How do you explain it in a world where the young are the most powerful? Or, more importantly, why does it need to be explained?
It’s remarkable that in a world so heavily populated by teenagers, older rappers can come out and not only produce phenomenal new, incensed, powerful music, but receive the praise and attention they deserve.
Pitchfork set the scene well in a 2014 feature on Run The Jewels: “It’s October 2014 and, in the upside-down free-for-all that is modern popular music, one of the hottest hip-hop duos in the United States is made up of a pair of 39-year-olds who’ve banked off interstitial cartoon music for a rare late-period career renaissance.” Around the same time, El told Rolling Stone that “There’s really no fucking way that you’d ever think, ‘I’m gonna make my best friend at 35,” a statement which could no doubt be repeated for music.
When Aesop Rock rock was asked to describe his new album to The Source, he had this to say: “The Impossible Kid is me closing in on 40 and just going over it all. It feels sorta reflective in the sense of going through some childhood memories, some family stuff, some friend stuff, some music stuff, some moments of being baffled by the youth of today, and just coping with getting older.
“I kinda feel like turning 40 is a very specific thing in our society. It somehow holds more weight than any other age, even though in some ways it’s pretty arbitrary. For whatever reason, it’s the age that we are officially old. Maybe because if we’re lucky, it’s the halfway point. In your 30s, you can kinda still pretend to be young, but there’s not much pretending at 40. It’s the age that looms more than any other. So yeah, this is the sound of me sliding into 40.”
The point of this is just to note that the ‘ageing rapper’ is no longer considered a death sentence. Hip-hop has traditionally focused heavily on youth, in terms of artists, subject matter and intended audience – but none of this is necessarily true today.
50 Cent said there cannot be maturity in music, and while this makes sense for him and his music personally, as a whole I disagree; it just depends on context. Growing up doesn’t necessarily make them softer or more boring or anything like that – you can hardly say Pusha T or Dr Dre are making the hip-hop equivalent of dad rock – it’s just that the game changes, as Nas said. You grow, you have a family, a business, different ambitions and priorities. Your life changes, so your music changes. Not for better or worse; it just grows, like you.
Image: PMCaregivers
Blueprint has just released his new EP titled Vigilante Genesis. It was produced by Aesop Rock, which is pretty cool considering he almost never produces music outside of his own catalogue.
Beginning on the title track, the EP opens with a booming instrumental layer and darkly flickering synths, immediately setting the tone for what’s to come. Most of the EP’s seven tracks are fairly short, around the three-minute mark or less. Each offering is a short story, a series of peeks into a very bleak, almost hyperreal world.
The EP is filled with grim stories and unrelenting, dark scenarios, and while the marvellous production has a kind of starkly futuristic Blade Runner vibe, the tales seem very much grounded in the darkest corners of today – or perhaps in the near future as Tears of a Drone might imply. You can certainly recognise Aesop Rock’s production; it’s not unlike a lot of his own records, and the same comparison can be made for Blueprint’s intricate, vividly illustrative storytelling. The EP essentially tells a series of stories about “creatures of the night,” as he describes in The Watering Hole, within this treacherous, extremely bleak world, their lives surrounded by murder, drugs, drones, violence and so on.
Blueprint’s tone and flow moves with remarkable variation throughout his range; from the quiet, understated husks of the solemn, sobering Graffiti Writer Killed, to the syncopated swings between rhymes of final track Ten Paces, a lot has been whisked into just nineteen minutes.
Purchase Blueprint’s Vigilante Genesis here or stream below (I’m not sure why Spotify has listed it as Vigilante Justice.)
Aesop Rock has shared short explanations of every single track on his wonderful new album The Impossible Kid. Considering how fast he raps, and how detailed his lyrics are, this a pretty damn beneficial cheat sheet for those who want to learn more. That said, this is probably his least cryptic album to date, but a non-cryptic Aesop Rock album is still more detailed and difficult to decipher than most (and that’s why we love him).
Posted to Facebook, he shared the following details about the backstory of each track:
https://www.facebook.com/AesopRockWins/posts/1018915581491122
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; one of the many aspects I admire most about Aesop Rock is his ability to confront his own experiences with mental health, depression, his worries and thought processes in a way that’s had a profound impact on me, and undoubtedly thousands of other fans. So to see him break it down in this frank way is pretty cool. It’s particularly significant to hear him discuss the effects of the death of Camu Tao like he has in Get Out Of The Car, as well as his feelings of worry, displacement and getting help, all the while showing off his sense of humour in Shrunk, Kirby and Tuff among others, not to mention the more singularly reflective tracks like Blood Sandwich, Rabies and Rings.
Anyway, for those who spent hours and hours deciphering his lyrics on Genius or among friends, this should be of use to you. Especially if you’re anything like this guy:
yea? The opening line “let me put you up on bob’s donuts” didn’t point you in the right direction?
— Aesop Rock (@AesopRockWins) May 16, 2016
Image: Mass Appeal
Aesop Rock is all about the visual releases these days. Fresh off the back of his stunning new album The Impossible Kid, comes the third video clip from the album, for Dorks. This follows videos for Rings and Blood Sandwich, as well as the album-length film which recreated Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, scene for scene, using little dolls and stop motion animation.
His visual input makes total sense considering that this album, particularly Rings, talks about his relationship with visual art. He also recently ran a visual competition on social media, asking fans to create short videos inspired by his album.
Anyway, at the end of last week, Aesop unveiled the video for Dorks with the caption “Today we present to you the music video for Dorks, featuring an array of cooperative animals – some more than others. This was directed by Rob Shaw on a cold and rainy day. Please enjoy, and come check us out in a city near you.”
First, we see Missing Persons posters about Aesop, an opposing visual to the opening lyrics, “Question: if I died in my apartment like a rat in a cage, would the neighbours smell my corpse before the cat ate my face?” We soon find him in a dank back alley, donning animated face paint and hanging out with a bunch of animals. We later see a sniper – Rob Sonic, whom Aesop is heading out on tour with in the US (and hopefully Australia, right?) – making what looks like a kind of vicious molotov cocktail He hunts Aes down, but before he shoots to kill, a massive animated creature comes to his defence. It is no doubt symbolic of a creature within, exemplified in the hook, “Don’t need no help, all by myself,”
This is a really dark video, a gorgeous representation of one of the deepest tracks on the album.
Click here to read my full review of Aesop Rock’s phenomenal seventh solo album The Impossible Kid.
https://www.facebook.com/AesopRockWins/videos/1013404215375592/
Image: Aesop Rock/Reddit
Anyone who knows me has, at one point or another, undoubtedly been bored to tears by my endless rants on Aesop Rock. Last week he released his new album The Impossible Kid.
Also known as Ian Bavitz, Aesop (I SAID AESOP NOT A$AP DAMN IT) is one of if not my all-time favourite lyrical lyricist. Not only is he statistically proven to have the largest vocabulary in hip-hop history, but his storytelling rhymes, the type you absolutely need headphones and repeat listens for, are as linguistically detailed and thematically surreal as many of my favourite novels.
Aesop Rock is not for the faint-hearted. It’s not an easy listen – his intricate verses are fast as all hell. Many an hour have I spent listening to Labor Days and Bazooka Tooth, not to mention his collaborative work in groups like Hail Mary Mallon or Weathermen deciphering and dissecting with the help of Genius. A legend of underground hip-hop who first came up on now-defunct label Def Jux (founded by a guy you may have heard of named El-P), The Impossible Kid marks his second release on Rhymesayers. Last year, he also released collaborative EP Lice with Homeboy Sandman over at Stones Throw, a short but sweet release which immediately became one of my favourites of 2015.
The Impossible Kid is a lyrical and emotional triumph. By far his most personal, reality-bound record to date, it is real, dark, depressive and contemplative. This is unsurprising, considering that the backstory feels like something of legend: following the death of a close friend, Bavitz retreated to a deserted barn in a remote neck of the woods, where he remained, presumably alone, for an extended period of time.
Something I noted on last year’s Lice EP was that one song in particular demonstrated a personal side to Aesop’s rap that we weren’t usually privy to. To be a wanker and quote myself, “Both artists reveal so much about themselves on this track; it truly feels like the layers have been pulled back… Aesop [admits], “On a tour of the wild frontier, lying awake, I tell myself it’s all to broaden my societal take, And while I sorta still believe it, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’d like to curl up on Long Island and die.” Ever the storyteller, it’s not often that we hear his story.””
I therefore found it interesting to discover that The Impossible Kid took this notion farther than I could have imagined. It provides insight into Aesop’s own life, his mind, thoughts and insecurities in a way we had never experienced before. The first track released was Rings, accompanied by an incredible video where you see him cut open, every nook and cranny invaded and explored.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcGql9Ir6Y
One of my favourite stories is on third track Lotta Years. He begins by comparing an ice cream store clerk’s sexualised lipstick tattoo to a more modest one of his own (trivia: the tattoo in question was drawn by Alex Pardee, who also designed the cover artwork for this album,) and later describes a girl’s waist-length dreadlocks. He overhears her discussing how she grew them for years, only to cut them off, and can now reattach them “anytime I want ‘em.” Cue one of my favourite observational moments, “My mind’s fucking blown, the future is amazing, I feel so fucking old, I bet you clone your pets and ride a hoverboard to work. I used a folding map to find the juice place in the first, These kids are running wild, I’m still recovering from church.”
This religious notion pops up with increasing frequency throughout. Aesop grew up in an orthodox household, and it’s obviously haunting him on The Impossible Kid.
“Die already,” he begins on Supercell, later revealing an ideological quandary, “Truthfully I don’t know which makes me a bigger coward, either stomach all the hubris, cash in his two cents, loose lips locked up over a chewed eucharist” – ie, does he stick with the Christian values imbued with him as a child? “Or, may reappropriate the energy, holed up, passing the poultry to Hecate” – or does he follow an occult tradition instead? Considering he’s calling both acts cowardly, I imagine he’s saying that spiritual devoteeism is generally pretty weak.
Lazy Eye is both a bitter critique of modern trends and a plea to “act natural, whatever that means for you,” which one Genius annotator insightfully suggests is a comment on depression, about searching for something (clearly not god anymore,) an identity. “Before climbing douchebag mountain, I was skate or die, started eating kale and came to terms with my lazy eye, puttin’ on the yoga lady, cutting off the cable guy, whistle while you’re waiting for your condition to stabilise.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kdvADPtjiU
Get out of the Car is an extremely powerful song which looks at how grief can affect you in many ways, for a long time. Aes talking about the death of Camu Tao, his friend and fellow Def Jux rapper, who passed away from cancer in 2008. It is an introspective and retrospective track, which was initially supposed to be called The Impossible Kid, before this was ultimately used for the album title. Here’s some of the song’s profound lyrics:
“Ah! Watch the Impossible Kid. Everything that he touch turns promptly to shit. If I zoom on out I can finally admit it’s all been a blur since Mu got sick,
“None of the subsequent years stood a chance… I was poison, heart full of canines, head full of voices, whole life trying to quiet them down, like a suicide king with a knife in his crown.
“8 years, been one long blindside, I could pinpoint seven more turns that occurred cause he never really healed from the first
“Knowing ain’t half the battle, that’s a bullshit quip written by some asshole, you can own what you are, and still sit around stoned in your car.”
Last week, Aesop revealed on Twitter that, “The song “Get Out of the Car” was originally called “The Impossible Kid” but I took the name for the album and renamed the song.”
Get Out of the Car is about realizing a bunch of shit you always considered to be separate, may have been more linked than you realized
— Aesop Rock (@AesopRockWins) April 30, 2016
It’s also about missing my brother Camu Tao
— Aesop Rock (@AesopRockWins) April 30, 2016
I could talk or write about Aesop’s lyrics for many more hours, but you’ve probably already closed the page, so let’s switch over to production for a moment.
Some critique Aesop Rock releases by accusing the production takes a backseat to his lyrical prowess. While it’s certainly true, I do not think of this as a point of criticism. It is simply necessary. Can you imagine trying to decipher his lyrics with intricate, multi-layered, instrumentals?
At fifteen tracks and fourty-eight minutes, almost one hundred per cent populated by Aesop’s voice, it is not easy to get through this in one go. However, it is punctured by myriad beats, varied synths, percussive rhythms and driving bass lines, allowing the listener some semblance of melody and groove throughout.
Although simple, they are not boring, and although repetitive, they do not drone. Most tracks feature a solid groove, with industrial, almost post-apocalyptic synths, not unlike many of his old Def Jux compatriots. Rings is ominous and progressive, Dorks contains a phenomenal if subtle chunky guitar, there’s a seductively dark bass hook on Supercell, and the remarkably catchy Kirby has got to feature one of my favourite Aes instrumentals ever.
I love this album. I love it. It’s amazing to be inside Aesop’s head like this, just as it is amazing how much this album has wormed its way inside mine. My expectations were high and they were exceeded. I can only hope that he’ll be visiting Australia some time soon, so that way may hear his tales in the flesh.
Here, watch the full-length movie accompanying the album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQF6x_FgnJ0
Image: Mass Appeal