| Aesop Rock is no newcomer to the deep New York underground, his Music for Earthworms and Appleseed were among the top downloads on mp3.com for a number of months. His first full-length shows a genuinely original imagination at work, a hip-hop artist whose range of production is as wide as his lyrical references, which go from Bilbo Baggins to Petri dishes. The brief opening track has the kickback of an old school Marley Marl track-lean, mean 909 bass drums, as Aesop Rock chants the party down. Then without a pause, Aesop rocks Vangelis' Bladerunner theme on "Commencement at the Obedience Academy" which proceeds to go into a breathless, surreal string of verses that veer in and out of the field of intelligibility, making folks like Anti-Pop Consortium sound coherent and down-to-earth in their lyrical style. But there is something distinctive about Aesop's rhymes. Like Priest, Beans, and M. Sayyid of Anti-Pop, Aesop never sounds as if he's trying too hard. Since Kool Keith's phenomenal solo success following Ultramag, so many emcees have tried to bite his style that the hip-hop community has ended up with at least a crate's worth of pretenders who try so hard to sound surreal, it's almost embarrassing to listen to. Not so with Aesop Rock, he sounds as if wakes up, jots down a few notes and then starts rattling off rhymes. "I'll Be Ok" which features Slug as a guest emcee is set to a brilliant harmonica loop and a loping breakbeat. "Fascination" turns 180 degrees, slipping into a lean drum program, with slippery click track, compressed handclap volleys, and lines like: "for your outboard motor, who do you think put that rock in water, I manufacture flotsam and jetsam," which perfectly characterize the off-key themes that dominate this album. Float is a sign that the hip-hop underground is not simply treading water. When independent label hip-hop reemerged about five years ago, it was a cry of hope emanating from a population who had been bludgeoned with mediocre major label music for too long. But the enthusiasm for the exploits of the hip-hop underground began to dwindle when it too began to sound all alike, and avant-garde producers like Timbaland, Swizz Beats, Mannie Fresh, and Dame Grease appeared on major labels. But the hip-hop underground will continue to be a site where new ideas foment. And from that crepuscular world comes Aesop Rock. - ICAST |
2XLP/Out Of Print