Not to get personal here, but it’s been puke central at my house. Two young kids + their cousins + long car rides + some kinda flu means we’ve been cleaning barf off most surfaces in our home. So maybe it’s just me and my extremely weak stomach, but does the trailer for Aesop Rock’s new album Skelethon (dropping July 10 on Rhymesayers) make anyone else want to yack the fuck up? I’ve been wondering who Whiskers was and what happened to him, thanks to Aesop’s continually entertaining Twitter feed, and now the answer is here. Aesop has found his missing kitty. Watch the video to see it come back from beyond the grave. Yuuuuuuck.
But seriously, what I like here is the first single, “Zero Dark Thirty,” off the album. Aesop’s got such a strange and varied career that it’s anyone’s guess what this new album’s going to sound like. This is his first album in like five years, so it’s hard to say how he’ll integrate all his new influences and ideas. Is it going to be the classic backpack rap that he helped propel into the mainstream (as his flow on this track is hinting at), or the deliciously retro boom bap of his recent album with Hail Mary Mallon? Special guests on the album include folk weirdo Kimya Dawson, and his collaboration on her recent solo album was one of its highlights, so perhaps he’ll hew toward a folk DIY aesthetic. Who knows? In just the past day he’s been dropping ridiculous “free hooks” via Twitter for budding rappers. Sample:
“bagels - poppy seed or asiago, dip that shit in some gazpacho, serve it as a new wave nacho, all you hear is “who made? bravo!”
Sounds like the album will feature backup work (with Kimya the only guest vocalist) from Allyson Baker (Dirty Ghosts), Hanni El Khatib, Nicky Fleming-Yaryan, Rob Sonic, and the Grimace Federation. It drops July 10 on Rhymesayers, so we’ll soon see what he has in store for us. In the meantime, stick close to his Twitter feed, cause that shit is weird!
• Aesop Rock: http://aesoprock.com
• Rhymesayers: http://www.rhymesayers.com
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