Aesop Rock Float
LP
He's from New York, "where the fat beats stretch for mad blocks," but the assertion "my knuckles haven't once dragged on the ground.." spells out that he is no Bumpy knuckles.... He has a very distinctive voice and characteristic flow and this is his third album in 2 years.. - However,given his decloration "my silhouette had more dimensions than his gameplan" he's the antithesis of DMX. He is potentially one of the greatest of all time - no it's not LL. Some confuse his voice with that of Saafir but believe, he is nothing to do with the Hobo junction - it's Aesop Rock Goddammit!!!!!
new york was once an Eden, a thribing metropolice of genesis and sometimes genius (and even someone called The Genius) so it is something of an understatement to say that for the past 5 or so years, there's been Trouble in paradise; courtesy of Satan puffy combs and his moronic money-grabbing minions Still, Whilst many have given up the fight and subsequently succumb to the artistic decline, there exists a small yet growing band of martyrs who respond to the rhetorical invitation to "swing your little axe or be an oak tree if you can" in the face of such adversity. Indeed! Lyricists including Mike Ladd, Louis Logic, Rob Smith (Sonic Sum), Pharoahe Monch et al deserve canonisation for their attempts to reassert the integrity levels of NYC's hiphop industry.Nonetheless, the only feasible foil to the diabolical triad of Swizz Beats, Puff Daddy and Funk Master Flex (whose savage regime currently holds the city in a creative choke-hold) has to be a trinity - and right now, few can/should dispute that new York's Rap-pantheon is clearly headed by Necro, Thirstin Howl III and of course, Aesop Rock... In the CD's inlay, Aesop Rock has written three sentences of explanation and elaboration for each of "Float"'s 20superb tracks, - I can sum it all up with one word: phenomenal!!!! Yet even if I feel that one word is enough, I'd be short-changing y'all if I did not proceed with all the hows, whys and wheres so here goes....
From the album's opening (title) track Aesop rock is kean to establish the project's premise but at the same time, he sets an ominous tone for what is to follow with the hook "I float, while everyone around me's busy drowning." Similarly Dispirited disclosures such as "that city-scape makes me numb" or his evocative description of how he'll reluctantly "drag my sneakers through the dirt like aligator bellies" reflect a feeling that his surroundings have imposed a notion of spiritual, if not physical, peralysis. When it comes to charting his horizons however, During an album which is thematically comprable to James Joyce's "Dubbliners," Aesop Rock confronts, quite spectacularly, the ways in which he endures a love/hate relationship with the place which is simaltaneously spurring on and stifling the will and skill of it's inhabitants. Gloom may at first appear all pervaisive, engulfing all within it's vacinity like smog but glimmers of optimism and hope do spring forth from a few lines such as "on the train, watching rainbows, thank you windows" which are scattered, like magic beans, across the album's duration. Subsequently, once set adrift on "the seven deadly seas of the anonymous" through the power of his imagination, ian Davitz is determined to embark on a mission to "reap the harvest in a city of garbage." It is during "Skip town:" where Aesop Rock can be found openly fantasising about breaking free of new York's gravitational pulll. Furthermore, such cerebral street-sweeping is most bounteous during the captivating vignette of his block (" that is 6B Panorama") During this funky track, Aesop rock's cutting observation conjures a panoramic panoply of an urban mindset. Consequently, no matter what the subject, Aesop Rock effortlessly weeves an elaborate web of symbolism, imagery, allusions and metaphors in which moods, ideas and dreams are held up in the light like a cinematic Kaleidoscope However, with the sarcastic line like "hold me suspended in a dream merely inches from the screen," when it comes to the most accessible and seductive form of escapism, namely Television, Aesop rock invokes this optimistic "same window: different visual" ocular motif only to subvert it to great effect. "Basic Cable" is a powerful meditation upon the way TV has become the wet nurse of a disgustingly apathetic, andincreasingly attomised nation, is like a more funky descendent of The Disposable heroes of Hiphoprisy's "Television, drug of the nation."
If you haven't already figured it out for yourself, this album is great - but it's not all down to Aesop Rock of course - Despite complaining "If ya want to push then I'm read to push but if you're pushing while I'm pulling why'd you ask me to push?" during the hook of the funky blues-harp (that's mouth-organ) and steal guitar beat of the duet with Slug "I'll Be OK" this album is the sum of the efforts of a cast of guest producers and emcees set the stage, but never threaten to upstage the star act. In terms of the album's music, from the pared down, low-fi drum-machine programs of Aesop Rock's own production, through to the sumptuous bakcdrops provided by Block Heads production expertese (whose throw-away interludes are classics in themselves), "float" is brimming with cross-over appeal; many tracks could sit quite happily on a Westwood/Hot 97 playlist alongside lyrical cripples like Jay-Z or Jadakis. Indeed, the albums standout track which packs as much hot-97 appeal as it does real hiphop lyrical value would have to be the thunderous "Attention Span" featuring Cannibal Ox's Vast.
In the same way that not everyone who can bash a nail into a piece of wood can claim to be a carpenter, not everyone who can string a couple of rhyming lines together deserves the titles "Rapper" or "Emcee. So, when ian Davitz doesn't use the same phrasing pattern for each verse let a lone track to structure a barrage of easily accesible symbolism He not only succeeds to show that he is one of, if not the, greatest lyricists in hiphop today - but as "float" is full of intricate, cryptic allusion to all his other work, such forays into the potential sub-genre of Hiphop hypertext Prove him to be nothing less than a meticulous craftsman. During the album's final track, "The Mayor and the Crook" Aesop rock speaks of using his little contribution to kick up a fuss and sort things out; taking his little brick to build another new city elsewhere. However, rather than some hustler-turned-revolutionary persona prescribed by this track, I feel that it is more appropriate to invoke the title of the album's third track when proclaiming that Aesop Rock's "Float" is NYC-hiphop's much-needed "Big Bang!"
(c) Copyright 2000, Cd Goldie for ukhh.com
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