Album Review: Garbology by Aesop Rock

The mythical collaboration of an obsessive fan base's astral dreams If a bevy of thirty-somethings whose primary objectives in life are to a) beat depression and b) kick in the Doors of Perception Huxley-style were capable of something so taxing as clamouring, chances are they'd be doing so in order to hear a full album of Aesop Rock bars over Blockhead beats. Trails of frantic missives scrawled in Aesopian Safe Spaces the internet-wide are testament to this -- Garbology is the mythical collaboration of an obsessive fan base's astral dreams. Well, dear travellers, before the ayahuasca you've ingested to enhance your virginal listen of Garbology winds up on your lab apron, temper your expectations.

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Aesop Rock and producer Blockhead’s collaborative relationship stretches back to the late 1990s when Definitive Jux was the premiere independent Hip Hop label. Co-founded in New York City by Amaechi Uzoigwe and El-P, who was a member of Company Flow long before Run The Jewels was even a granular idea, the label helped propel the careers of Del The Funky Homosapien, Murs, RJD2 and, of course, Aesop Rock. During those early days, Aesop and Blockhead routinely made magic on songs such as “Daylight” from 2001’s Labor Days and the title track from 2007’s None Shall Pass.

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A little less than halfway through Aesop Rock's new album, Garbology, he places himself in a scene: He's imagining himself casing his own house when a neighbor catches him; the two share a mundane exchange ("You OK, dude?" "Yeah--you OK?"). It's Beckettian: The banality, as always, is the point. Fourteen years ago, the Long Island-bred rapper famous for his labyrinthine flows put out his last LP for El-P's landmark indie rap label Def Jux.

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